Qass_L 

Book V . v : 



CATHARINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA 

From BartolozzVs engraving of the painting by Bemdetti, presented to t?ie 
Earl of Oxford by the Empress 

1 



THE 

ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS 

CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 

R. WALISZEWSKI 

it 



WITH A PORTRAIT 




D. 



NEW YORK 
APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1894 



Authorized Edition. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

- * This is a romance/ says the writer in his 
preface, * in which fiction finds no place. Even 
legend enters into it no more than it must needs 
enter into every faithful evocation of the past. 
The reader's curiosity, however, and his taste 
for adventure, if he has it, will lose nothing, all 
the same. 5 Materials, it seems, for an exact and 
minute study of Catherine have only of recent 
years been forthcoming ; now, out of the seventy- 
two volumes of documents already published by 
the Russian Imperial Historical Society, scarcely 
twenty can be found which are not directly con- 
cerned with the history of her reign. And there 
are other materials, scattered in obscure Russian 
periodicals, other documents, contained in the 
State Archives in Russia and in France, which 
have never been consulted, and which are quite 
out of ordinary reach. Such, M. Waliszewski 
tells us, are the main foundations of this 
* Romance of an Empress/ in which he has 
endeavoured to present, without fear or favour, 



vi TRA NSLA TOR'S PRE FA CE 

the results of a thorough and impartial in- 
vestigation. One consequence, which is both 
interesting and significant, is that the book has 
been forbidden to be circulated in Russia. 

It may be as well to state that the original 
book is not written in Parisian French ; it has 
the colloquialisms of a foreigner, wishing to be 
more native than the natives. The translator 
has not attempted to remove, or even to atten- 
uate, this Russian accent, so to speak. He 
has endeavoured merely to make his rendering 
as close as possible to the original 



CONTENTS 



PART I— THE GRAND DUCHESS 

BOOK I— FROM STETTIN TO MOSCOW 



CHAP. PAGB 

I. CHILDHOOD, 3 

II. ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA — MARRIAGE, l6 

III. THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE, ... 66 

BOOK II— IN PURSUIT OF POWER 

I. THE YOUNG COURT, 97 

II. THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE, 143 

III. THE VICTORY, . 1 76 

PART II— THE EMPRESS 

BOOK I— THE WOMAN 

I. APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT, . . 205 

U. IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES, 24 1 

BOOK II— THE SOVEREIGN 

I. THE ART OF RULING, , 262 

II. HOME POLICY, 284 

III. FOREIGN POLICY, 320 



viii 



CONTENTS 



BOOK III— THE FRIEND OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES, .... 330 

II. CATHERINE AS A WRITER, 353 

III. CATHERINE AND EDUCATION, 361 

BOOK IV— INNER ASPECTS 

I. HOME LIFE, . . .371 

II. FAMILY LIFE — THE GRAND DUKE PAUL, . . . 397 
III. PRIVATE LIFE—FAVOURITISM, 419 



PART I 

THE GRAND DUCHESS 



BOOK I 



FROM STETTIN TO MOSCOW 
CHAPTER I 

CHILDHOOD 
I 

Fifty years ago there was consternation in a 
little German town : a railway was to be brought 
through it, removing, after the manner of rail- 
ways, old landmarks, cutting through old dwell- 
ings, levelling old promenades, where generation 
after generation had taken the air. Among the 
objects thus menaced by impious engineers, to 
the utter despair of the people in the neighbour- 
hood, one tree, a venerable lime-tree, seemed to 
be held in special reverence. In spite of all, the 
railway was brought through. The lime-tree 
was not, however, cut down ; it was taken up 
by the roots and transplanted elsewhere. As a 
special distinction it was set up opposite the new 
railway station, where it showed its insensibility 
to the honour by withering away. Then it was 
made into two tables : one of them was presented 
to Queen Elizabeth of Prussia, the other to 
Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia. 
The inhabitants of Stettin gave to this tree the 
name of Kaiserlinde, imperial lime-tree, and, 



4 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



according to their account, it had been planted 
by a German princess, then known as Sophia of 
Anhalt-Zerbst (or, more familiarly, Figchen), who 
had been wont to play with the townspeople's 
children in the market-place, and who had since 
become, they knew not how, Empress of Russia, 
under the name of Catherine the Great. 

Catherine had indeed passed a part of her child- 
hood in the old Pomeranian city. Was she born 
there? It is not often that the old dispute over 
the birthplace of Homer comes to be renewed 
over the birthplaces of the great personages of 
modern history. This uncertainty in the case of 
Catherine is one of the special peculiarities of her 
career. No register of any parish in Stettin has 
kept a trace of her name. In the similar case of 
the Princess of Wiirtemberg, wife of Paul I., the 
explanation is easy : the child was no doubt bap- 
tized by a clergyman of the Protestant church, not 
attached to a parish. But a note has been dis- 
covered^ — apparently authentic- — indicating Dorn- 
burg as the place where Catherine was born and 
baptized ; and grave historians have founded on 
this datum the strangest suppositions. Dornburg 
was the family seat of the family of Anhalt-Zerbst 
zu Dornburg— that is to say, of Catherine's family. 
Had not her mother stayed there about 1729, 
and had she not frequent occasions of seeing a 
young prince, barely sixteen years of age, who 
was enduring, not far from there, a tedious 
existence with a disagreeable father? This 
young prince, afterwards known as Frederick the 
Great, has been designated by a German his- 
torian, Sugenheim, as the 'father incognito' of 
Catherine. 



CHILDHOOD 



5 



A letter of Prince Christian-August of Anhalt- 
Zerbst, the official father of the future Empress, 
seems to take away all appearance of truth from 
this hazardous conjecture. It is dated from 
Stettin, May 2, 1729, and states that on that 
very day, at half-past two in the morning, a 
daughter had been born to him in that town. 
This daughter can be no other than Catherine. 
Christian-August ought at least to have known 
where his children were born, even if he were 
a little uncertain as to how they came into the 
world. And further, there is no proof whatever 
that Dornburg had received within its walls the 
mother of Catherine, not long before the birth of the 
latter : indeed, the contrary seems well established. 
It is far enough from Dornburg and from Stettin, 
it is at Paris that the . Princess of Zerbst appears 
to have passed a part at least of the year 1728. 
Frederick, as is well known, never went there, 
though indeed he nearly lost his head in trying 
to go. But the imagination of German historians 
is inexhaustible. In default of Frederick, there 
was at Paris in 1728, in the Russian embassy, a 
young man, the bastard of an illustrious family, 
who certainly must have associated with the 
Princess of Zerbst. Behold us on the trail of 
another romance, another anonymous paternity ! 
The young man was called Betzky, and became 
afterwards a personage of importance. He died 
in St. Petersburg at an advanced age, and it was 
reported that Catherine, who showered kindly 
and gracious attentions upon the old man, was 
accustomed, when she visited him, to bend over 
his arm-chair and kiss his hand. This was 
enough for the German translator of the memoirs 



6 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of Masson, whose conviction we should find it 
hard to share. At this rate we might indulge 
in similar suppositions in regard to every 
illustrious birth in the history of the eighteenth 
century. 

Catherine, then, who was later to be called 
Catherine the Great, was born, according to all 
appearances, at Stettin, and her parents, by law 
as by nature, so far as we know, were called 
Prince Christian- August of Zerbst-Dornburg, and 
Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth of Holstein, his legiti- 
mate wife. A time was to come, as we shall see, 
when the least actions of this child, so obscurely 
brought into the world, were to be traced day 
by day, and almost hour by hour. It was her 
revenge upon destiny. 

But what, in 1729, would be signified by the 
birth of a little Princess of Zerbst ? The princely 
house so named, one of those with which the 
Germany of the period was swarming, formed 
one of the eight branches of the house of Anhalt. 
Up to the time when an unexpected chance 
brought unexampled fame, none of these branches 
had attained any particular distinction, and within 
a short time the final extinction of the whole line 
had cut short this dawn of notoriety. Without 
history up to 1729, the house of Anhalt-Zerbst 
had ceased to exist in 1793. 

11 

The parents of Catherine did not live at 
Dornburg. Her father had something else to do : 
he had, in fact, to make his way in the world. 
Born in 1690, he had entered the Prussian army, 



CHILDHOOD 



7 



and had seen active service in Holland, in Italy, 
and in Pomerania, fighting against the French 
and against the Swiss. At thirty-one he had won 
his epaulettes as Major-General. At thirty-seven 
he married the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth of 
Holstein-Gottorp, younger sister of that Prince 
Karl-August who had already all but sat on 
the throne of Russia by the side of Elizabeth. 
Appointed commandant of the Anhalt-Zerbst 
regiment of infantry, Christian-August had to 
betake himself to his regiment, and to the garrison 
life, at Stettin. 

As husband and father, Christian-August was 
a model. He adored his children, but when 
Catherine came into the world he had been 
expecting a son, and his dissatisfaction saddened 
the early years of Catherine's childhood. When 
this period of her life came to be inquired into — 
and a time came when it was zealously inquired 
into — the memory of those who had witnessed 
it was already fading. She herself was by no 
means willing to revive the recollection, and she 
replied to questionings on the subject with a 
reserve which was, for her, unusual. ' I see 
nothing interesting in it,' she wrote to Grimm, the 
most intrepid of questioners. Nor were her own 
recollections very exact. ' I was born/ she said, 
1 in Greifenheim House, on the Marien Kir- 
chenhof.' There is not, and there never was, a 
house of that name at Stettin. The commandant 
of the 8th regiment of infantry lived at 791 
Dom Strasse, the house of the president of the 
Chamber of Commerce of Stettin, von Ascher- 
leben. The quarter in which this street was 
situated was called Greifenhagen. The house has 



8 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



changed owner and number; it belongs to-day 
to the Councillor of State Dewitz, and is No. i. 
On a piece of the whitewashed wall there is 
to be seen a black patch, the sole trace left by 
the sojourn of a great empress : a little smoke 
caused by a chafing-dish lighted the 2nd May 
1729 before the cradle of Catherine. The cradle 
is gone : it is at Weimar. 

Baptized under the names of Sophia Augusta 
Frederika, in honour of three of her aunts, 
Catherine was generally known as Figchen, or 
Fichchen, according to the orthography of her 
mother — apparently a diminutive of Sophia 
(Sophiechen). Not long after her birth her 
parents moved into the chateau of Stettin, where 
they occupied the left wing, close to the church. 
Figchen had for herself three rooms, of which 
the one in which she slept was next to the bell- 
tower. Thus was she enabled to prepare her 
ears for the task of hearing, in time to come, 
the deafening carillon of the orthodox temples, 
without too much disturbance — a providential 
arrangement, perhaps. It was there that she was 
brought up, very simply. Often did the streets 
of Stettin see her playing with the neighbours' 
children, none of whom, most assuredly, ever 
thought of calling her Your Highness. When 
the mothers of these children paid a visit to the 
chateau, Figchen went before them and respect- 
fully kissed the hem of their robe. So it was 
ordained by her mother, who had wise notions 
on the subject — a rare occurrence with her. 

Figchen had, nevertheless, a great many 
masters to look after her education, besides a 
governess, who, of course, was French. French 



CHILDHOOD 



9 



teachers and governesses were at that time to 
be found in all the German houses of any im- 
portance ; one of the indirect consequences of 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They 
taught the French language, the French manners, 
and the French gallantry. They taught what 
they knew, and most of them knew nothing 
else. Thus Figchen had Mile. Cardel. She had 
also a French chaplain, Peraud, and a writing- 
master, also French, called Laurent. Some 
native masters completed this well-furnished 
collection of pedagogues. A certain Wagner 
taught Figchen her maternal language. For 
music she had another German, named Roellig. 
In later days it often pleased Catherine to call 
up the recollection of these first instructors of 
her youth, half tenderly, half with a sort of 
wicked childish wit. She gave a place apart 
to Mile. Cardel, ' who knew almost everything 
without having learnt anything, very much like 
her scholar ' ; who told her that she had * an 
awkward disposition ' ; and who was always 
telling her to keep back her chin. 1 She con- 
sidered it excessively sharp,' Catherine tells us, 
' and she said that by sticking it out I knocked 
against everybody I came across.' The good 
Mile. Cardel had probably little thought of the 
encounters to which her pupil was destined. 
But she did more than setting up her mind and 
getting her chin into line. She made her read 
Racine, Corneille, and Moliere. She contested 
her with the German Wagner, with his Teutonic 
pedantry, his Pomeranian dulness, the insipidity 
of his Prufungen, of which Catherine always 
kept a painful recollection. Certainly she com- 



ib CA THERINE IT. OF RUSSIA- 

municated to her something of her own tempera- 
ment, the Parisian temperament, we should say 
nowadays — quick, alert, ready-witted. And — 
must we admit it ? — she rendered her a still 
greater service, to all appearance, in saving 
her from her mother, and not only from the 
blows that she was wont to shower down for 
a yes or a no — out of ill-temper, never for any 
reason' — but especially from that quite other 
temperament that belonged, as we shall see 
later, to the wife of Christian-August : a tem- 
perament made up of intrigue, of deception, of 
low instincts and petty ambitions, in which 
was reflected the whole soul of many genera- 
tions of Germanic princelings. After all, Mile. 
Cardel really deserved the furs that her pupil 
hastened to send her on arriving at St. Peters- 
burg. 

An important part of the education thus or- 
ganised was made by Figchen's frequent journeys 
in the company of her parents. Residence at 
Stettin had no particular attractions for a young 
woman bent on pleasure and a young military 
commandant who had been through half Europe. 
Chances of change were thus welcome, and with a 
large family connection such chances were never 
wanting. There were Zerbst, Hamburg, Bruns- 
wick, Eutin, everywhere relations, everywhere 
hospitality, not very sumptuous as a rule, but 
cordial. It was at Eutin, in 1739, that the Prin- 
cess Sophia saw for the first time the man whom 
she was to deprive of a throne after having 
received it from him. Peter Ulric of Holstein, son 
of a cousin-german of her mother, was then eleven 
years of age. She herself was ten. This first 



CHILDHOOD 



1 1 



meeting, which, at the time, passed unnoticed, 
did not give her a favourable impression — at least 
so she declared later, when she came to write her 
memoirs. The child seemed to her a weakling. 
She was told that he had a bad disposition, and, 
what appears incredible, that he had already a 
taste for drink. Another excursion left in her 
young imagination a much more profound trace. 
In 1742 or 1743, at Brunswick, at the house of 
the Dowager-Duchess who had brought up her 
mother, a canon of the church, expert in chiro- 
mancy, bethought himself to see in her hand no 
less than three crowns, though he could see 
none in the hand of the pretty Princess of Bevern, 
for whom they were seeking just then a high 
marriage. To find a crown along with a husband 
— that was the common dream of all these Ger- 
man princesses. 

At Berlin Figchen saw Frederick, but without 
his paying her more attention than was natural, 
or her caring greatly what he thought of her. 
He was a great king on the threshold of a mag- 
nificent career ; she was but a little girl, destined, 
to all appearance, to be the ornament of some 
infinitesimal court lost in the depths of the 
empire. 

All this was but the common life and education 
of all the German princesses of the time. Later 
on Catherine attempted, by a sort of coquetry, to 
bridge over the gaps and insufficiencies of this edu- 
cation. * What would you have ? ' she said ; ' I 
was brought up with the idea of marrying some 
little neighbouring prince, and I was taught as 
much as that demanded. Mile. Cardel and I 
had no thought of thisV The Baroness von 



72 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Printzen, maid of honour to the Princess of Zerbst, 
did not hesitate to declare that, on her part, with 
the closest opportunities of observing the studies 
and progress of the future empress, she had never 
seen in her any exceptional qualities or faculties. 
She expected her to turn out ' an ordinary woman.' 
Mile. Cardel was equally far from thinking, to all 
appearance, that in looking after the behaviour of 
her pupil she was (as the enthusiastic Diderot was 
one day to declare) the candlestick bearing the 
light of the age.' 

III 

There was something, nevertheless, in this 
mediocre existence that might already remind the 
Princess Sophia of her future destiny. She was 
but a little German Princess, brought up in a 
little German town, with a desolate sandy waste 
for horizon. But on this region lay the mighty 
shadow of a neighbouring power. This very 
province, not so long before, had seen a strange 
uniform in its towns, had felt the growing pres- 
tige of a power, newly come into Europe, and 
already terrifying and astonishing the nations, 
awakening infinite hopes and fears. At Stettin 
even, the details of the siege held against the 
armies of the great White Czar were fresh in 
all memories. In the family of Figchen, Russia, 
the great and mysterious Russia, her innumerable 
soldiers, her exhaustless riches, her absolute 
sovereigns, furnished a favourite theme for dis- 
cussion, into which, perhaps, there came some 
vague longings, some obscure presentiments. 
Why not? With the marriages which had united 



CHILDHOOD 



S3 



a daughter of Peter I. to a Duke of Holstein, a 
grand-daughter of Ivan, the brother of Peter, to 
a Duke of Brunswick, a whole network of alli- 
ances, affinities, and reciprocal attractions had 
been established between the great monarchy of 
the North and the vast tribe of meagre German 
sovereignties bordering on the immense empire. 
And the family of Figchen was brought into 
particular association with all this. When, in 
17.297 Figchen met her cousin Peter Ulric at 
Eutin, she knew that his mother had been a 
Russian Czarevna, a daughter of Peter the Great. 
She knew, too, the story of that other daughter 
of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, who had so nearly 
been her mother's sister-in-law. 

And now, all unexpectedly, came the news of 
the accession to the crown of Russia of this very 
Princess, the sorrowing fiancee of Prince Karl- 
August of Holstein. On December 9, 1741, by 
one of those coups de thddtre which were so fre- 
quent in the history of the Northern court, 
Elizabeth had put an end to the reign of the 
little Ivan of Brunswick and to the regency of 
his mother. How the echo of this event must 
have sounded in the ears of Catherine and her 
family! Separated by the cruelty of fate from 
the husband of her choice, the new Empress, it 
was known, kept a tender feeling, not only for 
the person of the young Prince, but for all his 
family. She had but lately asked for the por- 
traits of his surviving brothers : she was not 
likely to forget his sister. The predictions of the 
palmist canon must have come back to the mind 
of Figchen's mother. Certainly she did not fail 
to write at once to her cousin, and to send her 



14 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



congratulations. The reply was quite encour- 
aging. Amiable, affectionate even, Elizabeth 
showed herself grateful for all these kind atten- 
tions, and demanded yet another portrait — that 
of her sister, the Princess of Holstein, mother of 
Prince Peter Ulric. Evidently she was making 
a collection of them. What was all the mystery 
about ? 

The mystery was soon unveiled. In January 
1742 Prince Peter Ulric, 'the little devil/ as the 
Czarina Anna Ivanovna was accustomed to call 
him, rendered uneasy by his too close relation- 
ship with the reigning house of Russia — the little 
cousin whom Figchen had one day met — dis- 
appeared suddenly from Kiel, where he usually 
lived, and reappeared a few weeks later at St. 
Petersburg. Elizabeth had sent for him in order 
to proclaim him solemnly as her heir. 

Here, at all events, was an occurrence of no 
uncertain significance. It was the Holstein 
blood — Figchen's mother's — that triumphed in 
Russia to the exclusion of that of Brunswick. 
Holstein or Brunswick, the posterity of Peter the 
Great or that of his elder brother Ivan, both 
deceased without direct male heirs : the whole 
history of the house of Russia since 1725 had 
been implicated in this dilemma ; now Holstein 
had got the upper hand, and the fortune of the 
new Prince Imperial, as yet scarcely established, 
began to reflect itself upon his obscure German 
relations. It extended even to Stettin. In the 
month of July 1742 the father of Figchen was 
raised by Frederick to the grade of Field- Marshal 
— a politeness evidently intended for Elizabeth 
and her nephew. In September a Secretary of 



CHILDHOOD 



IS 



the Russian Embassy at Berlin brought to the 
Princess of Zerbst the portrait of the Czarina in 
a frame of magnificent diamonds. At the end of 
the year Figchen accompanied her mother to 
Berlin, where the celebrated painter Pesne was 
intrusted with the painting of her portrait. 
Figchen knew that the portrait was to be sent 
to St. Petersburg, where, no doubt, Elizabeth 
would not be the only one to admire it. 

A year passed without bringing anything de- 
cisive. At the end of 1743 the whole family 
was found at Zerbst : the extinction of the eldest 
branch had recently caused the succession of 
Christian- August's brother to the principality of 
that name. Christmas was gaily kept. There 
was this new good luck, there were doubtless 
some happy hopes for the future, dreams, per- 
haps,. more audacious still. The new year was be- 
ginning gaily, when an express courier, who had 
ridden post-haste from Berlin, brought startling 
news to the petulant Jeanne- Elizabeth and her 
graver spouse. This time the oracles gave open 
voice, and palmistry won a clear triumph. The 
courier brought a letter from Brummer, Master of 
the Household of the Grand Duke Peter, for- 
merly Peter Ulric of Holstein, and this letter 
was addressed to the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth, 
inviting her to come at once, with her daughter, 
to the Imperial Court of Russia. 



16 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



CHAPTER II 

ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA MARRIAGE 

I 

B rummer was an old acquaintance of the Princess 
Jeanne-Elizabeth. He had been the tutor of the 
Grand Duke, and had doubtless accompanied 
his pupil to Eutin. His letter was long, and 
filled with minute directions. The Princess was 
to lose as little time as possible in preparing for 
the journey, and she was to reduce her suite to 
the bare necessary — a maid of honour, two maids, 
an officer, a cook, three or four lackeys. At 
Riga she would find a suitable escort, which 
would conduct her to the place of residence of 
the court It was expressly stipulated that her 
husband was not to accompany her. She was 
to keep absolute silence as to the purpose of 
her journey. If she were questioned, she was 
to answer that she was going to see the Empress 
in order to thank her for all the kindness she 
had shown her. She might, however, confide in 
Frederick II., who was in the secret. A bill of 
exchange on a Berlin banker, to cover the ex- 
penses of the journey, accompanied the letter. 
The sum was modest-- 10,000 roubles, — but it 
was important, B rummer explained, not to attract 
attention by sending a large sum. Once in 
Russia, the Princess should want for nothing. 

It was evidently in the name of the Empress 
that Brummer sent this invitation, so much like 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 17 

an order, and these peremptory instructions. 
But he gave no further explanation as to the 
intentions of the Czarina. Another explained it 
for him. Two hours after the arrival of the first 
courier, a second followed, bearing a letter from 
the King of Prussia. Frederick dotted all the 
i's, and he did not fail to take to himself all the 
credit of Elizabeth's choice of the young Princess 
of Zerbst to be the companion of his nephew and 
successor. He had in truth had something to 
do with it, and in this manner. 

Naturally, there had been no few matrimonial 
competitions in regard to 'the little devil,' now 
heir to so splendid a crown. Soon every notable 
person at court, the most intriguing court in 
Europe — from the ex-tutor of the Grand Duke, 
the German Brummer, to the physician-in- 
ordinary of Elizabeth, the Frenchman Lestocq, — 
had a candidate of his own, and a following for 
his candidate. Now it was a French Princess, 
now a Saxon Princess, daughter of the King of 
Poland, now a sister of the King of Prussia. 
Backed by Bestoujef, the all-powerful Chancellor 
of the empire, the Saxon project had at one 
moment the greatest chances of success. * The 
court of Saxony, rampant slave of Russia,' 
wrote Frederick later, 4 desired the success of 
Marianne, second daughter of the King of 
Poland, for the increase of its own credit. , . . 
The Russian ministers, whose venality would, 
I think, have put the Empress herself up to 
auction, sold a premature contract of marriage • 
they received large sums of money, and the King 
of Poland nothing but words.' 

Sixteen years of age, pretty, well brought up, 



i8 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

the Princess of Saxony was not merely a suitable 
match ; the alliance would serve as basis of a 
vast combination, destined, so Bestoujef thought, 
to reunite Russia, Saxony, Austria, Holland, 
and England, three-quarters of Europe, against 
Prussia and France. The combination fell 
through, and Frederick did his best to aid its 
fall. He refused, however, to checkmate it by 
putting forward his sister, the Princess Ulrica, 
who would have suited Elizabeth. ' Nothing 
would be more barbarous,' he said, ' than to 
sacrifice the Princess/ For a time he left his 
envoy Mardefeldt to his own resources, which were 
small, and to those of his French colleague, La 
Chetardie, which, for the moment, were no better. 
Mardefeldt had been in disgrace for some time, 
and Elizabeth had been on the point of demand- 
ing his recall. As for La Chetardie, after having 
played so important a role at the accession of the 
new Czarina, he was foolish enough to let slip a 
position for which he had fought so hard. He 
had left his post, and, on his return, had not met 
with the same favour. His court did nothing on 
his behalf, and obliged him to be always asking 
for instructions. He would inquire 'if the king 
had still the same repugnance that he had shown 
at the accession of the Czarina to the marriage 
of the Grand Duke with one of the Princesses 
(avec une des Madames)' 

But Frederick was on the watch. It was he 
who had had the idea of sending to St. Peters- 
burg the portrait painted by Pesne at Berlin. 
A surviving brother of the mother of Figchen, 
Prince August of Holstein, had been commis- 
sioned to present it to the Czarina. Pesne was 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 19 

getting old, and the portrait, it appears, was not 
good. It had nevertheless the good fortune to 
please the Empress and her nephew. At the 
decisive moment, in November 1743, Mardefeldt 
received orders to put resolutely forward the 
Princess of Zerbst, or, if she would not do, 
one of the Princesses of Hesse- Darmstadt. In 
default of personal influence, the Prussian agent 
and his French colleague succeeded in winning 
over Brummer and Lestocq, and victory (so 
La Chetardie testifies) was the price of this 
alliance. 1 They have impressed upon the 
Czarina that a Princess of an important house 
would be less docile. . . . They have adroitly 
made use of some priest to insinuate to her 
Majesty that, seeing the small difference between 
the two religions, a Catholic Princess would be 
more dangerous/ Perhaps in the same order 
of ideas they dwelt on the agreeable insignifi- 
cance of the Prince of Zerbst, 'a good fellow 
in his way, but of a quite unusual stupidity,' 
says La Chetardie. In short, at the beginning 
of December, Elizabeth charged Brummer to 
write the letter which, a few weeks later, revolu- 
tionised the peaceful court in which Catherine 
had grown up under the benevolent eye of 
Mile. Cardel. 

11 

The preparations of the Princess Jeanne- 
Elizabeth and her daughter were as brief as 
Brummer could have desired. Figchen did not 
even wait for a new outfit. ' Two or three 
dresses, a dozen chemises, the same amount of 



20 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



stockings and handkerchiefs ' — that was all that 
she took with her. Since they were to want for 
nothing, haste and away ! ■ She only lacks wings 
to go quicker/ wrote B rummer to Elizabeth. 
There is no evidence that the Princess took 
much trouble to give any sort of dclat to her 
daughter's first appearance in Russia. In follow- 
ing the correspondence which she carried on at 
the time with Frederick, one is surprised to see 
how small a place was taken in her plans by 
the future Grand Duchess. Was it really on 
account of Figchen's chances of marriage that 
she was taking the journey to Russia? It might 
well be doubted : she scarcely makes the slightest 
allusion to it. It is of herself that she thinks 
chiefly, the vast projects that swarm in her 
brain, and that she is in hopes of developing on 
a stage worthy of her ; the services that she 
professes to render to her royal protector, and 
for which she seems to claim , a decent recom- 
pense in advance. So we shall see her act at 
St. Petersburg and at Moscow. 

Did Figchen know what was in the air, and 
for what reason, good or bad, she had been told 
to pack up her things ? The point is contested. 
She must have been aware that it was some- 
thing more than a simple excursion like those 
she had made to Hamburg and to Eutin. The 
extent and the vigour of the debates between 
her father and mother before leaving, the un- 
usual solemnity of the leave-taking with her 
uncle, the reigning Prince, Jean Louis, and the 
not less exceptional magnificence of the present 
— a beautiful blue stuff embroidered with silver 
wire — ■ with which he accompanied his last 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 21 



effusions : all that betokened something extra- 
ordinary. 

The departure took place on the 10th or 12th 
of January 1744, and was without incident. 
There is still shown at the Rathhaus of Zerbst 
the cup in which the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth 
drank the health of the notabilities of the town, 
gathered together with great ceremony to bid 
her farewell. This is probably only a legend. 
One incident, however, occurred at the moment 
of departure. After having tenderly embraced 
his daughter, Prince Christian-August put in her 
hands a large book which he bade her preserve 
with care, adding, mysteriously enough, that she 
might soon have occasion to consult it. At the 
same time he confided to his wife a manuscript in 
his handwriting, which she was to pass on to her 
daughter, after having absorbed and meditated 
upon its contents. The book was the treatise of 
Heineccius on the Greek religion. The manu- 
script fruit of Christian- August's recent watches 
and meditations was entitled Pro Memoria, and 
dealt chiefly with the question whether Figchen 
could not, 'by some arrangement or other,' 
become Grand Duchess without changing her 
religion. This was the great concern of Chris- 
tian-August, and the conjugal controversy which 
had accompanied the preparations for departure, 
and which had awakened the attention of 
Figchen, had but this one object ; Christian 
August showing himself intractable on the 
subject, and Jeanne- Elizabeth much more dis- 
posed to admit the necessities imposed by the 
new destiny of her daughter. It was for this 
reason that Figchen's father had resolved to 



22 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



arm his daughter against the temptations that 
might fall in her way. The treatise of Heinec- 
cius was to serve this purpose. It was the 
heavy artillery of the fortress. In the Pro 
Memoria followed considerations and recom- 
mendations of another order, in which the 
German practical spirit had its share ; not 
without some reflection of the petty ways of a 
court like that of Zerbst or Stettin. The future 
Grand Duchess was advised to show the greatest 
respect and the most entire obedience towards 
those on whom her future would depend. She 
would place the good pleasure of the Prince 
her husband above that of all the world. She 
would avoid too intimate relations with no 
matter whom of her associates. She would 
speak to no one in asides in a public assembly. 
She would keep her pocket-money to herself, 
so as not to come under the dependence of a 
maitresse de cour. Finally, she would take 
care to meddle with none of the affairs of 
government. All this was expressed in a jargon 
which gives a curious specimen of the current 
language of the time, the German that 
Frederick professed to despise — not without 
reason. ' Nicht in Familiarite oder Badinage 
zu entriren, sondern allezeit einigen figard sich 
moglichst conserviren. In keine Regierungs- 
sachen zu entriren um den Senat nicht aigriren;' 
and so forth. 

Two . months later Figchen thanked her father 
with effusion for his ' gracious instructions.' We 
shall soon see how much she profited by them. 

At Berlin, where the two princesses stayed for 
some days, the future Empress saw Frederick 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA—MARRIAGE 23 

the Great for the last time in her life. At 
Schwedt, on the Oder, she said good-bye for 
ever to her father, who had accompanied the 
travellers thus far. He returned to Stettin ; 
Jeanne- Elizabeth set out for Riga, by way of 
Stargard and Memel. The journey, especially at 
this time of the year, was anything but agreeable. 
There was no snow, but the cold was so intense 
that the two women were obliged to cover their 
faces with a mask. Then there were no com- 
fortable quarters in which to rest. The orders 
of Frederick, who had commended the Countess 
of Reinbek — the name under which the Princess 
was travelling — to the care of the Prussian burgo- 
masters and posting-house keepers, served them 
in little stead. * As the rooms in the posting- 
houses were not warmed,' wrote the Princess, 
'we had to take refuge in the landlord's room, 
which was just like a pig-sty ; husband, wife, 
watch-dog, fowls, and children all slept pell-mell 
in cradles, beds, mattresses, and behind the stove/ 
It was worse still beyond Memel. There were 
not even post-horses to be had. Horses had to 
be borrowed from the peasants : not less than 
twenty- four were required to drag the four heavy 
berlines in which the Princess and her suite were 
travelling. Sledges had been fastened on behind 
the carriages, in preparation for the snow that 
might be found further north. This gave a 
more picturesque air to the caravan, but did not 
hasten its progress. The advance was slow, and 
Figchen had an indigestion through drinking the 
beer of the country. 

They arrived at Mittau on the 5th of February, 
in a state of exhaustion. Here they met with a 



24 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



better reception, and the pride of Jeanne- Eliza- 
beth, secretly wounded by the familiarity that the 
Countess of Reinbek had had to endure from 
posting-house keepers, received its first satisfac- 
tion. There was a Russian garrison at Mittau, 
and the commandant, Colonel Voieikof, exerted 
himself to do the honours of the place to so 
near a relative of his sovereign. Next day 
they reached Riga. 

And suddenly, as in a pantomime, the scene 
changed. The letters of the Princess to her 
husband were quite effusive over this unexpected 
coup de thddtre ; the civil and military authorities 
presenting themselves at the entrance to the 
town, under the command of the Vice-Governor, 
Prince Dolgorouki, another high functionary, 
Siemiene Kirillovitch Narychkine, ex-ambassador 
at London, with a state chariot, cannon firing 
salutes on the way to the castle. And what 
splendour in the castle, prepared for the reception 
of these foreign guests ! Rooms magnificently 
decorated, sentries at all the doors, couriers on all 
the staircases, drums beating in the court. The 
salons, lit by a thousand tapers, are crowded with 
people : court etiquette, kissing of hands, obeis- 
ances to the ground, magnificent uniforms, mar- 
vellous toilettes, dazzling diamonds, velvet, silk, 
gold, a profusion never seen, never heard of 
before. To Jeanne-Elizabeth it seems as if her 
head is turning, as if she is in a dream. ' When 
I sit down to table,' she writes, ' the trumpets in 
the house, the drums, flutes, and hautboys of the 
guard outside, sound a salute. It always seems 
to me that I must be in the suite of Her Imperial 
Majesty or of some great princess ; it never 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 25 

enters into my head that all this is for poor me, 
accustomed as I am to have only the drum 
beaten for me, and sometimes not even that' 
She takes all the honour, however, and with the 
greatest delight. As for Figchen, we know 
nothing of the impression produced on her by 
all this riches and magnificence, so suddenly un- 
folded before her. Without doubt, it must have 
been profound. Russia, the great mysterious 
Russia, opened before her, giving her a foretaste 
of future splendours. 

On February 9th they set out for St. Peters- 
burg, where, by the will of the Czarina, they were 
to stay for a few days, before rejoining her at 
Moscow, and see that their toilettes were con- 
formed to the fashion of the country. This was 
Elizabeth's delicate way of repairing the defi- 
ciences, known or guessed, of Figchen's wardrobe. 
Assuredly, with her three dresses and her dozen 
chemises, the future Grand Duchess would cut a 
sorry figure at a court where all the splendours 
met together. The Czarina herself had 15,000 
silk dresses, and 5000 pairs of shoes ! Catherine 
did not mind, in later days, recalling her poverty 
at the time when she arrived in her new country. 
She seemed to herself to have paid her debt. 

Needless to say, the heavy German berlines 
with their odd equipment had been left behind at 
Mittau. Another sort of train was now to con- 
duct the two travellers on their way to fortune. 
The Princess of Zerbst describes it thus : ' (1) a 
detachment with a lieutenant of cuirassiers of 
the corps of His Imperial Highness, named the 
Holstein Regiment; (2) the Chamberlain, Prince 
Narychkine ; (3) an equerry ; (4) an officer of the 
3 



26 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Ismailovski Guards, who fills the place of gentle- 
man-in-waiting ; (5) a major-domo ; (6) a confec- 
tioner ; (7) cooks and under-cooks, to I know not 
what extent ; (8) a butler and under-butler ; (9) a 
man for the coffee; (10) eight lackeys; (11) two 
grenadiers of the Ismailovski Guards; (12) two 
quarter-masters; (13) any number of sledges and 
stable-boys. — Among the sledges is one named Les 
Linges—Wox Majesty's linen, that is. It is scarlet, 
and decked with gold, lined inside with sable. It 
has silk cushions, coverings of the same stuff, above 
which is placed one that has just been sent me 
with the pelisses (a present from the Empress, 
brought by Narychkine). My daughter and I are 
to have this sledge, where we shall lie at full length. 
La Kayn (maid of honour of the Princess) has 
one to herself, not such a fine one.' Further on, 
Jeanne- Elizabeth grows yet more eloquent over 
the perfections of the marvellous imperial sledge : 
4 It is extremely long. The top is like our 
German chairs. It is hung with red cloth striped 
with silver. There is fur all round the bottom. 
On that are placed a feather bed and damask 
cushions ; above that again, a satin covering, very 
neat and nice, on which one lies down. Under 
one's head are yet more cushions, and one puts 
over one the furred coverings, so it is exactly 
like being in a bed. For the rest, the long space 
between the driver's seat and the covered part 
serves for two purposes, and is at the same time 
useful in regard to the comfort of the conveyance, 
because, whatever rut it passes over in the road, 
it can pass over without jolting ; and the bottom 
of this space is made up of boxes, in which one 
can put wh^t one likes. By day it serves for the 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 27 

gentlemen in attendance, and by night for the 
servants, who can sleep there at full length. 
These constructions are drawn by six horses, 
harnessed two and two, and cannot be upset. It 
is all the invention of Peter the Great.' 

Elizabeth had left St. Petersburg on the 21st 
January. Nevertheless, a large number of per- 
sonages belonging to the Court and a part of 
the diplomatic corps were still there. The 
journey to Moscow, at this epoch, was quite an 
affair. It necessitated the moving, not only of 
people, but of furniture as well. The departure 
of the sovereign displaced a hundred thousand 
people, and emptied an entire quarter of the town. 
The French and Prussian Ambassadors had no in- 
tention of letting any one whatever be beforehand 
with them in regard to the two princesses. La 
Chetardie, in his despatches to Amelot, boasted 
that he knew both mother and daughter intimately. 
He had recently met with them at Hamburg, on 
his return to Russia. Both exerted themselves to 
the utmost. The Princess of Zerbst found her- 
self in an atmosphere of homage, of assiduity, of 
forced flattery, in which already intrigues and 
rivalries began to show themselves. She was in 
her element, and she flung herself into it with 
delight, holding receptions, giving audiences, from 
morning to night, surrounding herself with pro- 
minent personages, essaying the most complicated 
moves of the game of politics. At the end of a 
week she was out of breath. Her daughter held 
out better. ' Figchen southenirt die Fatige besser 
als ich/ wrote the princess to her husband. And 
she noted this trait, which seems already to 
indicate the future Semiramis: Tt is the grandeur 



28 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of her surroundings that sustains the courage of 
Figchen.' 

The grandeur ! that, indeed, is what seemed 
most to impress the mind of this girl of fifteen, 
initiating her into the mysteries of her future 
destiny. At the same time she learnt of what 
this grandeur was made, and how it was attained. 
She was shown the barracks from which, so short 
a time before, Elizabeth had set out to conquer 
a throne. She saw the wild grenadiers of the 
Preobrajenski regiment, who accompanied the 
Czarina on the night of the 5th December 1741. 
And the one true lesson, the living lesson of 
things, spoke to her awakening mind. 

In the mind of her mother certain anxieties 
intrude themselves into the intoxication of the 
present hour. Across the crowd of compliments 
there pierce certain dim warnings, certain veiled 
threats. The all-powerful Bestoujef remains 
always hostile to the projected alliance, and he 
has not thrown up the game. He counts on 
the Bishop of Novgorod, Ambrose Jouchkievitch, 
disapproving of the too close relationship between 
the Grand Duke and the Princess Sophia, or 
won over, as people said, by the Saxon court 
with a thousand roubles. The influence of this 
prelate is considerable. But Jeanne-Elizabeth 
has no lack of courage. She has, too, for her 
further confidence in her own success, two reasons 
worth all the arguments of her adversaries : — 
first, her extraordinary levity of temperament, 
which made her give herself the name of Will-o'- 
the-Wisp ; and secondly, her own opinion of her- 
self, of her resources for intrigue, of her aptitude 
in surmounting the gravest difficulties. What, 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 29 

after all, has to be done ? Merely to overcome 
the opposition of a minister who is unfavourable 
to her. For that there is a remedy, which has 
already been discussed by her and Frederick on 
her passage through Berlin : it consists in sup- 
pressing the opposition by suppressing the 
minister. Frederick has had it in mind for some 
time. Well, she will overthrow Bestoujef as soon 
as she has reached Moscow. Drummer and 
Lestocq will aid her. 

It is with this fine project in her mind that she 
once more starts on her way. 

in 

The journey, this time, is very different from 
that between Berlin and Riga. The posting- 
houses on the way are almost palaces. The 
sledges skim over the firm ice. They push 
forward night and day, in order that they may 
reach Moscow by the 9th of February, the Grand 
Duke's birthday. For the last relay, at seventy 
versts from Moscow, sixteen horses are harnessed 
to the famous sledge constructed by Peter the 
Great, and the distance — some fifty miles — 
is covered without a stoppage in three hours. 
This headlong course is all but interrupted by 
a fatal accident. In passing through a village, 
the lumbersome vehicle, which once again carries 
the fortunes of Russia, grazes the corner of a 
cottage. The blow detaches from the roof of 
the sledge two great bars of iron, which come 
near crushing the two sleeping princesses. One, 
indeed, strikes Jeanne- Elizabeth on the neck, but 
the pelisse in which she is enveloped softens the 



3 o CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

blow : her daughter is not even awakened. Two 
grenadiers of the Preobrajenski regiment, sitting 
on the front part of the sledge, are dashed to the 
ground, bleeding and dislocated. Leaving it to 
the villagers to pick them up, the horses are 
whipped up, and at eight o'clock in the even- 
ing they halt at Moscow, before the wooden 
palace, the Golovinski Dvarets, inhabited by the 
Czarina. 

Elizabeth, all impatience, is waiting for the new- 
comers behind a double row of courtiers. Her 
nephew, more impatient still, disregarding eti- 
quette, and not giving the travellers time to take 
off their furs, dashes into their room and gives 
them the warmest greeting. Soon after, they are 
conducted to the presence of the Czarina. The 
interview is all that could be wished ; nor does it 
pass without a touch of feeling, which seems of 
good augury. After having gazed attentively at 
the mother of the future Grand Duchess, the 
Empress turns aside and goes quickly out of the 
room. It is to hide her tears, for she has seen 
certain traits in the face of the princess which 
remind her of her unforgotten sorrow. The 
princess, instructed by Brummer, has not for- 
gotten to kiss the imperial hand, and Elizabeth 
is gratified by these testimonies of excessive 
respect. 

Next day, Figchen and her mother are simul- 
taneously raised to the rank of Dames of the 
Order of Catherine, at the desire of the Grand 
Duke, as Elizabeth assures them. ' We are 
living like queens, my daughter and I,' writes 
the Princess of Zerbst to her husband. As for 
the all-powerful Bestoujef, there is no need for 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIA GE 3 1 

the Princess to organise a cabal against him. 
There is one already formed by the French and 
the Prussian parties, supported by the Hol- 
steiners who have been attracted to Russia by 
the fortune of Peter- Ulric. Lestocq directs, or 
seems to direct, the affair; putting forward, in 
opposition to Bestoujef, Count Michael Voront- 
sof, who has taken part in the accession of 
Elizabeth. We need not here paint the portrait 
of the minister whom Jeanne-Elizabeth would 
thus put in check, one of the most astonishing- 
diplomatic free-lances of the age, for he has 
served many before finally offering his services to 
Russia. Does Figchens mother really represent 
to herself the gravity of the struggle into which 
she is entering, and the power of the adversary 
whom she has against her? It is not probable. 
But she remembers that Frederick has promised 
her the Abbey of Quedlinbourg for her younger 
sister, if she succeeds in her enterprise, and she 
means to have her abbey. In Frederick's mind 
the fall of Bestoujef serves as the signal of a 
great political upheaval, which may lead to the 
closer union of Russia, Prussia, and Sweden. 
How glorious for the Princess of Zerbst, to link 
her name with the accomplishment of such a 
task ! She feels within herself the power to 
achieve it. She is a woman, and she comes 
from Zerbst : let that be her excuse. She 
imagines herself still in the midst of the little 
intrigues, the frail plots, that she has known 
before ; and it is this that constitutes her great 
mistake, till one day her eyes open to the reality 
of things, and she sees the immensity of the abyss 
near which she has unknowingly ventured. As 



32 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



for the marriage of her daughter, she will have 
no more to do with it. ' It is a settled thing,' 
she writes to her husband. Figchen has won the 
suffrage of all ; ' cherished by the sovereign, 
loved by the heir apparent.' And what has the 
heart of the future wife to say to all this ? Has 
the recollection of that first meeting at Eutin with 
the sickly ' child of Kiel ' given place to more 
favourable impressions ? That is not a point 
that enters into the calculations of her mother. 
Peter is Grand Duke ; one day he will be 
Emperor. The heart of her daughter would be 
made of different stuff from the hearts of all 
German Princesses, past and present, if she were 
not satisfied with her chances of happiness under 
such conditions. Let us see nevertheless what 
has happened to the sickly child since the un- 
expected change in his fate. 



IV 

Peter was born at Kiel, February 21, 1728. 
The minister at Holstein, Bassewitz, wrote to St. 
Petersburg that the Czarevna Anna Petrovna 
had given birth to 'a robust and healthy boy.' 
It was a phrase of court flattery. The child was 
not robust, and never could be. His mother 
died three months later ; of consumption, said the 
doctors. The feeble health of the future Emperor 
caused his education to be neglected. Up to the 
age of seven he is in the hands of governesses, 
French governesses, at Kiel as at Stettin. He 
has also a French master, Millet. At this point 
he is suddenly put under the discipline of the 
officers of the Holstein Guard. He becomes a 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 33 

soldier before he is a man, a soldier of the 
barracks, of the mess, of the guard-room, of 
the field-parade. So he acquires a taste for 
the low side of soldiering, its vulgarities, its 
hardships, its minutiae. He goes through his 
drill, he mounts guard. In 1737, at the age of 
nine, he is sergeant, and he stands, musket in 
hand, at the door of a room in which his father is 
giving a sumptuous dinner to the officers. Tears 
run down the child's cheeks as he sees the suc- 
culent dishes file past under his eyes. At the 
second course his father has him relieved, ap- 
points him lieutenant, and allows him to sit down 
to the table. After he had come to the throne, 
Peter was wont to refer to this incident as the 
happiest recollection of his life. 

In 1739, on the death of his father, there is a 
complete change of regulation. He has a head 
tutor, under whom are several others. This head 
tutor is the Holsteiner B rummer, whom we know 
already. Rulhiere has eulogised this man ' of 
rare merit,' whose sole error, according to him, 
was that of ' bringing up the young Prince after 
the greatest models, considering rather his station 
than his abilities.' Other testimonies that have 
come to us in regard to this personage are much 
less favourable. The Frenchman Millet said of 
him that 'he was good for training horses, and 
not princes.' He treated his pupil, it seems, 
brutally, inflicting on him preposterous punish- 
ments utterly unsuited to the delicacy of his 
health, such as depriving him of food, or inflict- 
ing on him the torture of kneeling for a long 
space of time on dried peas spread on the ground. 
At the same time, as the little Prince, 'le dia- 



34 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



blotin,' who persisted in living despite the objec- 
tion of the Empress Anne — was at once heir to 
the throne of Russia and to that of Sweden, he 
was taught alternately Russian and Swedish, 
according to the chances of the moment. The 
result was that he knew neither language. When 
he came to St. Petersburg in 1742, Elizabeth 
was astonished to find him so backward. She 
handed him over to Stahlin, a Saxon, who had 
come to Russia in 1735, and who was Professor 
of Eloquence, of Poetry, and of the Philosophy of 
Gottschedt, of the Logic of Wolff, and of many 
other things besides. To his functions as pro- 
fessor he joined the exercise of a great number of 
talents. He wrote official verse for the Court 
fetes, translated Italian operas for her Majesty's 
theatre, designed medals destined to record some 
victory over the Tartars, directed the choir of 
the imperial chapel, and composed mottoes for 
the court fireworks. 

What became of Peter's education in the midst 
of all this may be easily imagined. Brummer 
still remained with the child in his position 
of master of the household — grosser and more 
brutal than ever, according to Stahlin's report. 
One day the latter was obliged to interfere in 
order to hinder actual violence ; the Holsteiner 
was making for the young Prince with raised 
fists, while Peter, half-dead with fright, shouted 
to the guard to come to his aid. 

Under such training the character of Catherine's 
future husband contracted vicious habits and in- 
eradicable defects ; he was at once violent and 
cunning, cowardly and braggart. He already 
astonished the candid Figchen by his lies, as 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA-MARRIAGE 35 



he was afterwards to astonish the world by his 
cowardice. One day, as he amused himself by 
thrilling her with records of his prowess against 
the Danes, she inquired naively at what time these 
exploits had happened. ' Three or four years 
before my father's death.' ' But you would only 
be seven!' He reddened with anger. Weakly 
withal, uncomely in body as in mind, he was a 
crooked soul in an impoverished and prematurely 
ravaged body. Figchen would certainly do ill 
to count on his affection, sincere as it appeared 
in the eyes of Jeanne-Elizabeth, to assure her 
establishment in Russia. Was he even capable 
of love, this young man who cut so sorry a 
figure ? 

Happily for her, Catherine was well able to 
depend on her own resources. The account she 
herself gives of this period of her life would be 
scarcely credible if we had not wherewith to 
verify the accuracy of her story. She was hardly 
fifteen, and already we find in her that just and 
penetrating perception, that soundness of judg- 
ment, that marvellous sense of the situation, and 
that admirable good sense which, later on, formed 
so large a part of her genius, — which were, per- 
haps, her genius. To begin with, she realises 
that to remain in Russia, to make a figure, to 
play a role, it is needful to become a Russian. 
Without doubt her cousin Peter had never 
thought of it. But she sees well the discomfort 
and the dislike that he creates about him with his 
Holstein jargon and his German manners. She 
gets up in the night to repeat the lessons that 
her Russian master, Adadourof, has set her. As 
she never takes the precaution of dressing, and 



36 



CATHERINE Ih OF RUSSIA 



walks barefoot in the room to keep herself awake, 
she takes a chill. Soon her life is in danger. 

- The young Princess of Zerbst,' writes La 
Chetardie (March 26, 1744), 'is ill with peri- 
pneumonia.' The Saxon party takes courage — 
uselessly, if we may believe the French diplo- 
matist, for Elizabeth is resolved, whatever 
happens, that they shall never profit from the 
event. ' "They shall gain nothing," she said the 
day before yesterday to MM. de Briimmer and 
Lestocq ; " for if I have the misfortune to lose this 
dear child, may the devil take me if ever I have 
a Saxon princess." ' Briimmer also confided to 
La Chetardie that, ' in the distressing extremity 
that must be faced and considered, he had laid 
his plans, and that a Princess of Armstadt [sic], 
a charming person, who had been thought of by 
the King of Prussia in case the Princess of Zerbst 
were to fail, would have the preference over every 
other.' The prospect of this substitution, reassur- 
ing as it is, is far from delighting La Chetardie. 
'We shall lose much,' he declares, 'seeing how 
I am looked upon by the Princesses of Zerbst, 
mother and daughter, and their persuasion that 
I have contributed to the future prepared for 
them.' 

While rival ambitions thus fight over her, the 
Princess Sophia struggles with death. The 
doctors prescribe blood-letting. Her mother 
opposes it. It is referred to the Empress ; but 
the Empress is at the convent of La Troitza, 
absorbed in the devotions to which she abandons 
herself in her passionate, though intermittent 
way, putting a certain passion into all that she 
does. Five days pass ; the patient waits. At 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 37 



last Elizabeth arrives with Lestocq, and orders 
the blood-letting. The poor Figchen loses con- 
sciousness. When she returns to herself, she 
finds herself in the arms of the Empress, who, 
to console her for the prick of the lancet, makes 
her a present of a diamond necklace and a pair 
of earrings worth 20,000 roubles. It is the 
Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth who notes the price. 
Peter himself becomes generous, and gallantly 
offers a watch covered with diamonds and rubies. 
But diamonds and rubies have no power over the 
fever. In twenty-seven days she is bled sixteen 
times, sometimes four times in twenty-four hours. 
At length the youth and robust constitution of 
Figchen get the better alike of the disease and 
the treatment. It appears, even, that this long 
and severe crisis has had a decisive and singularly 
happy influence over her destiny. While her 
mother has succeeded in rendering herself insup- 
portable to everybody, always in opposition to 
the doctors, in dispute with the attendants, scold- 
ing and tormenting her own daughter, she, on 
the other hand, has known how to win all hearts, 
and, despite her condition, to render herself 
liked and loved by all. There is a story of 
a certain piece of stuff — the famous blue stuff 
embroidered with silver, the present of her uncle 
Louis— that Jeanne- Elizabeth took it into her 
head, one knows not why, to try to take away 
from the poor Figchen. It is easy to imagine 
the excitement caused in the sick-chamber by 
this pitiful incident : a concert of reprobation 
against the unnatural mother, a concert of sym- 
pathy in favour of the daughter, victim of such 
" unfeeling treatment. Figchen gave up the piece 



38 



CATHERINE 11. OF RUSSIA 



of stuff, and lost nothing by it. And she had 
other triumphs. Her very illness endeared her 
to the Russian heart, for it was known how she 
had come by it. The image of the young girl, 
barefooted, heedless of the winter weather, con- 
ning over by night the unfamiliar sounds of the 
Sclavonic tongue, already haunted the imagina- 
tion, was already a legend. And it was said 
that, at the most dangerous point of the crisis, 
her mother had wished to summon a Protestant 
pastor to her bedside. ' No,' was her reply; 
'what for? Send for Simon Todorski.' Simon 
Todorski was the orthodox priest who had had 
charge of the religious education of the Grand 
Duke, and who was now to undertake that also 
of the Grand Duchess. 

What were the sentiments, at this time, of 
the Princess Sophia on this delicate subject ? 
It is difficult to be sure. Certain indications 
favour the supposition that the treatise of Heinec- 
cius and the objurgations of the Pro Memoria 
of Christian-August had produced on her a some- 
what profound impression. ' I pray God,' she 
wrote to her father, still at Konigsberg, ' to 
strengthen my soul with all the force it will 
need in order to resist the temptations to which 
I prepare to see myself exposed. He will accord 
this grace to the prayer of your Highness and of 
dear mamma.' Mardefeldt, for his part, showed 
some anxiety. ' There is one point,' he writes, 
' that, causes me infinite embarrassment: it is 
that the mother believes, or pretends to believe, 
that this young beauty could never embrace the 
Greek religion.' He tells how he had one day 
to have recourse to the pastor, in order to calm 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 39 



the mind of the Princess, frightened by the 
lessons of the Pope. Here, nevertheless, is what 
Catherine thought later, no doubt looking back 
on her own experience, of the difficulties that 
line the way to the bosom of the orthodox 
church on the part of a German Princess brought 
up in the Lutheran religion, of the time required 
for surmounting them, and of the course and 
progress of the moral problem. Writing to 
Grimm on August 18, 1776, in reference to the 
Princess of Wiirtemberg, whom she destines for 
her son Paul, she expresses herself in these terms : 
'As soon as we have her, we will set about her 
conversion. We shall need quite fifteen days. 
. . . To hasten it all on, Pastoukhof has gone to 
Memel to teach her the ABC and the Confession 
in Russian : conviction will come after' 

However it may have been, the refusal to 
see the evangelical minister — a repudiation of 
the faith of her childhood — coming from the 
dying lips of the future Grand Duchess, and the 
appeal for the aid of Todorski — an anticipatory 
confession of the orthodox faith — received a 
ready belief. From that time the position of 
Figchen in Russia was assured. Whatever might 
come about, she was sure for the future to find 
it in the hearts of this naif and profoundly re- 
ligious people, whose beliefs she had espoused, 
and who testified its gratitude by immediately 
espousing her interests. The link that was to 
unite this little German Princess to the great 
Sclavonic nation, whose language she was but 
beginning to stammer ; the compact that for near 
a half-century was to associate their destinies 
in a single glorious fortune, to be broken only 



40 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



by death ; this link, this compact, were from this 
moment found and formed. 

On April 20, 1744, the Princess Sophia 
appears for the first time in public after her 
illness. She is still so pale that the Empress 
sends her a pot of rouge. But, notwithstanding, 
she attracts all eyes, and she feels that all eyes 
look on her kindly. Already she pleases and 
attracts. She brightens and warms about her 
the glacial atmosphere of a court which she is 
one day to render so brilliant. Peter himself 
shows himself more attentive and more con- 
fiding. Alas ! his gallantry and his confidence 
are of but one kind. He tells his future wife 
the story of his intrigue with one of the maids 
of honour of the Empress, the Princess Lapou- 
khine, whose mother has recently been exiled 
to Siberia. The freiline has to quit the court 
at the same time. Peter would like to have 
married her, but resigned himself to the will 
of the Empress. Figchen blushes, and thanks 
the Grand Duke for the honour he has done 
her in making her the third party to his 
secrets. Already it is evident what sort of 
future lay before these two creatures so little 
made for one another. 



v 

During this time the Princess Jeanne-Eliza- 
beth is quite given over to her enterprises in 
the higher diplomacy. She makes friends with 
the Troubetzkoi family, and with the bastard 
Betzky himself, whose bustling personality 
begins to make itself felt. She has a salon, 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 41 

which is the meeting-place of all the adversaries 
of the actual political system, all the enemies 
of Bestoujef : Lestocq, La Chetardie, Mardefeldt, 
Brummer. She forms cabals, she plots, she 
intrigues. She goes forward with all the ardour 
of an hysterical woman, and all the heedlessness 
of an airy brain. She thinks she has secured 
her success, and also her Abbey of Quedlin- 
bourg. She already sees herself complimented 
by Frederick, and assuming, in short, the role 
of his ambassador at the court of the North, 
his best, his most precious ally. She sees 
nothing of the abyss at her feet. 

On the 1 st of June 1744 Elizabeth has 
betaken herself once more to the convent of 
La Troitza, this time with full ceremony and 
the pomp of a solemn pilgrimage, taking half 
her court with her, and journeying on foot. 
She has formed the vow, on coming to the 
throne, that she will repeat this ceremony 
every time that she visits Moscow, in memory 
of the refuge that Peter I. had found in the 
ancient monastery, at a time when his life was 
in danger through the revolt of the Strelitz. 
The Princess Sophia, still too weak, is not able 
to accompany the Empress, and her mother 
remains with her. But after three days a 
courier arrives, bearing a letter from Elizabeth: 
the two Princesses are to rejoin the Imperial 
cortege, and assist at its solemn entrance within 
the walls of La Troitza. Scarcely are they 
installed in a cell, where the Grand Duke 
comes to pay them a visit, when the Empress 
herself enters, followed by Lestocq. She seems 
greatly agitated. She orders the Princess 
4 



42 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Jeanne-Elizabeth to follow her into a neigh- 
bouring room. Lestocq accompanies them. 
The interview is long. Figchen pays no heed 
to it, occupied in listening to her cousin's usual 
extravagant chatter. Little by little her youth 
and vivacity get the better of the constraint 
which the Grand Duke's presence generally in- 
spires, she enters into his childish mood, and both 
fall to laughing and playing with great gaiety. 
Suddenly Lestocq returns : i This is soon to 
be put a stop to,' says he brusquely ; then, 
addressing the Princess Sophia : ' You had 
better see about packing up.' Figchen remains 
dumfounded, and, as the Grand Duke demands 
what it all means, Lestocq contents himself with 
adding: 'You will soon see.' 

' I saw clearly,' writes Catherine in her 
memoirs, • that he (the Grand Duke) would 
have abandoned me without regret. For my 
part, his disposition being what it was, I should 
have viewed his loss with indifference, but not 
that of the crown of Russia.' Was it possible 
that this girl of fifteen was already thinking 
about the crown ? Why not ? Writing her 
memoirs forty years afterwards, supposing that 
she really wrote them as they have come to 
us, Catherine may, and indeed must, have 
forced the note of her childish impressions. 
' My heart,' she tells us, referring to this period, 
' foresaw nothing good in the future ; ambition 
alone sustained me. I had, deep down in my 
heart, an indefinable something which never 
let me "doubt for an instant that I should 
become the Empress of Russia.' Here the 
exaggeration is evident, and the a posteriori 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 43 



attitude stares one in the face. But the throne 
in company with Peter might well allure the 
imagination of the precocious child ; ' expecta- 
tions ' far more distant have at all times figured 
in the matrimonial bill, and Jiancdes of fifteen, 
now as ever, know very well how to cash them. 

After Lestocq comes the Empress, very red, 
and the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth, very agitated, 
her eyes full of tears. At the sight of the 
sovereign the two youngsters, who had been 
sitting on the ledge of the window, their legs 
dangling, and, taken aback by what Lestocq 
had just said, had not moved from their place, 
jump down precipitately. One sees the picture. 
It seems to disarm the Empress's wrath. She 
smiles, goes up to them, embraces them, and 
goes out without a word. Then the mystery 
begins to clear up. For more than a month 
the Princess of Zerbst had been unconsciously 
walking over a mine that had been dug for her 
by the enemies whom she fancied it so easy to 
dispose of. And the mine had just exploded. 

The Marquis La Chetardie had returned to 
Russia at the age of thirty-six, with the reputa- 
tion of being the most brilliant diplomatist of the 
day. Tall, well made, an imposing and accom- 
plished cavalier, he seemed destined to take a 
great place at a court where everything was 
decided by favour, where success depended on 
the power of pleasing, and where he, it was said, 
had already had the good fortune to please. He 
had his plan, a very ingenious, perhaps a too 
ingenious, plan, whose adoption he had already 
secured, not without difficulty, at the court of 
Versailles. It placed the fall of Bestoujef, that 



44 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

is to say the abandonment of the Austrian policy 
defended by this minister, as the price of an ar- 
rangement long debated between the two courts, 
eagerly desired by Elizabeth, obstinately refused 
by France. It related to the title of Imperial 
Majesty, tacitly allowed to the Czars of Russia 
since Peter the Great, but not yet inscribed on 
the protocol, and consequently absent from the 
official documents emanating from the chancellor 
of the Most Christian King. La Chetardie had 
obtained credentials containing the longed-for 
title. He kept them by him, to give to the 
successor of Bestoujef, after his dismissal. Eliza- 
beth was well aware of it, and soon it was known 
to every one at the court. Until matters were 
arranged, the French diplomatist, relying on his 
personal ascendency, affected to deal directly 
with the Empress, over the head of her chancellor. 
This was relying too much on his powers ; it 
showed, too, a singular error in regard to the 
character of Elizabeth. The portrait of the 
daughter of Peter I. has been often sketched, and 
we have been able to arrive at a probably exact 
idea of this singular sovereign's ways of living and 
ruling. She was at once restless and indolent, 
avid of pleasure and nevertheless fond of affairs, 
spending hours over her toilette, keeping a signa- 
ture or an order waiting for weeks or months, 
and yet authoritative withal ; voluptuous, pious, 
incredulous, and superstitious ; passing, from 
moment to moment, from excesses which ruined 
her health to religious exaltation which impaired 
her intellect : une ndvrosde, as we should say to- 
day. The Baron de Breteuil relates, in one of 
his despatches, that, in 1 760, she was in the act 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 45 

of signing the renewal of the treaty concluded in 
i 746 with the court of Vienna, and had already 
written ' Eli . . . ' when a wasp settled on the 
end of her pen. She stopped, and it was six 
months before she made up her mind to finish the 
signature. Of her appearance, the Princess of 
Zerbst has left us this pleasant sketch : — 

' The Empress Elizabeth is very tall ; she had 
formerly an extremely good figure. She was 
getting fat when I knew her, and it always 
seemed to me that what Saint Evremond says in 
his portrait of the famous Duchess de Mazarin, 
Hortense Mancini, might have been said of the 
Empress : " De ce quelle a la taille deliee une 
autre l'aurait belle." It was then true to the 
letter. Never was a head more perfect ; it is 
true that the nose is less so than the other 
features, but it is well enough in its way. The 
mouth is unique : there never was such another : 
it is all graces, and smiles, and sweetness. It 
could never look sour, could never take any but 
a gracious shape ; reproaches from it would be 
adorable, if it could ever proffer reproaches. 
Two rows of pearls show through the coral of two 
lips that must be seen to be imagined. The eyes 
are full of sensibility ; yes, that is the effect they 
make upon me. One might take them for black, 
but they are really blue. They inspire all the 
sweetness with which they are animated. . . . 
Never was a forehead more pleasing. Her hair 
grows in such a manner that with a touch of the 
comb it seems to have been cunningly arranged. 
She has black eyebrows, and hair naturally 
cendrJe. Her whole form is noble, her bearing 
fine, her presence full of grace ; she speaks well, 



4 6 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



with an agreeable voice ; her gestures are correct. 
In short there never was one like her. Her 
complexion, her neck, her hands — never were 
any such seen. Believe me, I know what I am 
talking about, and I am speaking without pre- 
possession.' 

As for her mind, the pen of the Chevalier 
d'Eon opposes to this gracious ensemble a terrible 
counterpart : — 

' Under an air of apparent bonhomie, she 
(Elizabeth) has a sharp and incisive intelligence. 
If one is not buttoned and cuirassed beforehand 
against inspection, her eye glides under your 
clothing, lays you bare, pierces open your breast, 
and when you discover it, it is too late : you are 
naked, the woman has read you to the root of 
your heart, has rummaged your very soul. . . . 
Her frankness and good nature are only a mask. 
In your France, for example, and in all Europe, 
she has the reputation and the name of cldment. 
On her accession to the throne, indeed, she swore 
on the venerated image of St. Nicholas that no 
one should be put to death during her reign. 
She has kept her word to the letter, and not a 
head has as yet been cut off, it is true ; but two 
thousand tongues, two thousand pairs of ears 
have been. . . . You know, no doubt, the story 
of that poor, interesting Eudoxie Lapoukhine ? 
She did some wrong perhaps to her Majesty, but 
the gravest wrong, be sure, was to have been her 
rival, and fairer than she. Elizabeth had her 
tongue pierced with a red-hot iron and twenty 
strokes of the knout administered by the hand of 
the hangman, and the unhappy creature was 
pregnant, and near the birth. . . . You will find in 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 



47 



her private life the same contradictions. Now 
impious, now fervent, sceptical to the point of 
atheism, bigoted to the point of superstition, she 
passes whole hours on her knees before the 
image of the Virgin, talking with her, interrogat- 
ing her with ardour, and demanding of her in what 
company of the Guards she should take the lover 
of the moment. ... I was forgetting one thing. 
Her Majesty has a pronounced taste for strong 
liquor. It happens to her sometimes to be in- 
disposed to the extent of falling in a swoon. . . . 
Then her dress and her corsets have to be cut. 
She beats her servants and her women.' 

It is easy to see what difficulties must have 
been found by La Chetardie in his relations with 
a princess of so strange a humour, and on what 
slippery ground the Princess of Zerbst was ven- 
turing in his company. For she had become his 
associate, and had ended by pinning all her faith 
to him. Mardefeldt was quite out of the battle, 
Brummer had little by little drawn away from the 
party, and Lestocq tacked about, with the native 
suspiciousness of his shrewd instinct. Despatches 
from Versailles exhorted the Marquis to pru- 
dence, ending by peremptorily ordering him not 
to make too uncertain a bargain on the strength 
of the expected gratitude for the Imperial title. 
After all, the matter was not of such grave im- 
portance, 'the King is Emperor in France.' It 
was much better to pay the Czarina ' a kind of 
flattery,' by showing her the king's letter. This 
would, perhaps, induce her to force the minister's 
hand in favour of the conclusion of the wished- 
for alliance. La Chetardie declared himself 
ready to obey, but there was some difficulty in 



4 8 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



doing so : it was needful to ' catch and keep ' the 
Czarina, for at least a quarter of an hour, and 
this he could not do. 

Meanwhile, Bestoujef put himself on the de- 
fensive. With the assistance of an employe of 
the chancellor's, Goldbach, a German, perhaps 
a Jew, an expert in the art of deciphering, so 
much cultivated at that period, he intercepted 
and brought to light all the correspondence of 
the French ambassador, which he suddenly 
planted before the eyes of the Empress, bringing 
specially to her notice the passages which per- 
sonally concerned her, the passages in which La 
Chetardie deplored the idleness and frivolity of 
the sovereign, her unrestrained love of pleasure, 
and her very coquetry, which caused her to 
change her toilette four or five times a day. One 
can imagine Elizabeth's anger, and the conse- 
quences. Having deliberately refrained from 
making use of his credentials, La Chetardie was 
without official standing. A simple note from 
the chancellor's office gave him orders to quit 
Moscow and Russia within twenty-four hours. 
The Empress even demanded the return of a 
portrait that she had given him on the cover of 
a snuff-box set with diamonds. The snuff-box 
he could keep. 

But it was not La Chetardie only who was 
compromised. His despatches had revealed to 
the Empress the part taken by the Princess of 
Zerbst in the abortive intrigue. They showed 
her at the court and in her own intimacy play- 
ing the part of spy in the service of Prussia and 
France, giving secret information to La Chetardie 
and Mardefeldt, corresponding secretly with 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 49 

Frederick. That is what was meant by the enig- 
matical scene at the convent of La Troitza. 

The Princess of Zerbst escaped with a good 
fright, with a taste of the truth that she had to 
hear from the lips of Elizabeth, and with the irre- 
vocable loss, not only of the credit she had fondly 
hoped to acquire at court, whose secret springs 
she only now began to realise, but also of that 
to which she might legitimately have laid claim. 
' The name of the Princess of Zerbst,' wrote La 
Chetardie's successor, d' Albion, a year after these 
events, 'was frequently met with in the inter- 
cepted letters of M. de La Chetardie. From that 
time the Empress took a decided dislike to her. 
. . . Her best course would be to return to 
Germany.' This, indeed, is what she did, but 
not without having assisted at the single victory 
of which a chance remained to her under a sky 
now so overcast, — the single one of which she 
seemed to have lost sight, almost to the point 
of letting it escape her. 

VI 

The person of Figchen had passed through 
this crisis unhurt. From this moment, indeed, 
and as if her proved innocence had pleaded her 
cause with even her adversaries and the enemies 
of her fortune, her triumph became certain, and 
her marriage with the Grand Duke finally 
assured. One delicate point still remained to be 
settled, the solemn admission of the Princess 
Sophia into the Greek Church. The Princess of 
Zerbst had done her best to carry out the injunc- 
tions of her husband. She had tried to fortify 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



her own faith and the faith of her daughter. She 
had also made inquiry if the precedent of the 
wife of the Czarevitch Alexis, who had retained 
her position in the Protestant Church, might not 
be utilised for the benefit of Figchen. On this 
last point the result of her investigation was 
unsatisfactory. But the news that she gave of 
it to the pious and scrupulous Christian- August 
was accompanied by reassuring statements. She 
had gone over the creed of the Greek Church 
with Simon Todorski, she had compared it care- 
fully with Luther's catechism, and she had 
arrived at the conviction that there was no funda- 
mental difference between the two religions. As 
for Figchen, she had not taken so long to find 
out that she could save her soul in the orthodox 
religion. Heineccius evidently did not know 
what he was talking about, and Methodius har- 
monised admirably with Luther. The arguments 
of Simon Todorski on this subject were irresist- 
ible. He was a clever man, this archimandrite. 
He had seen the world, and had been a student 
at the University of Halle. Christian- August 
was not at first easy to move. ' My good Prince 
of Zerbst,' wrote Frederick, later on, ' was most 
restive on this point. ... He replied to all my 
arguments, "My daughter shall not join the 
Greek Church." ' Happily there was another 
Simon Todorski at Berlin. 'Some priest,' con- 
tinues Frederick, 'whom I knew how to win 
over . . . was complaisant enough to persuade 
him that the Greek rites were similar to those of 
the Lutherans. After that he was always saying 
" Lutheran-Greek, Greek- Lutheran, it is the same 
thing.'" In the course of June, a courier, sent 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 51 

by Elizabeth, returned with the Prince's official 
authorisation of the marriage and conversion 
of the Princess Sophia. The good Christian- 
August declared that he had perceived the finger 
of God in the circumstances which had led to 
this determination. 

June 28th was fixed for the public profession of 
the young catechumen, and the day following, the 
feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, for the betrothal. 
The approach of this ceremony did ' not fail to 
cause some emotion to Figchen. The letters 
that she received in great numbers from her 
relations in Germany were not all of a reassuring 
kind. One can see to what comment of all kinds 
this unexpected destiny of the little princess 
would give rise in the minds of those among 
whom she had lived till now. The tendency 
was not generally too favourable. A little 
jealousy mingled perhaps with the apprehensions 
that seemed inspired only by a tender solicitude. 
The lamentable history was recalled of that un- 
happy Charlotte of Brunswick, the wife of Alexis, 
deserted by her husband, forgotten by the Czar. 
And had not the far-off Russia been fatal to all 
that German family, which had thought to find 
there a future of glory and greatness ? All that 
came to the future Grand Duchess in long con- 
torted phrases of Teutonic jargon, stuffed with 
French, in which she saw more of envy than 
of true consideration, but which made her some- 
times tremble as she gazed anxiously into the 
future. 

No one certainly would have thought so among 
the crowd of courtiers who, at ten o'clock in the 
morning of the 28th June 1744, thronged the 



52 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



entrance to the imperial chapel of the Golovinski 
Dvarets. Dressed in an * Adrienne ? robe of 
red cloth of Tours laced with silver, a simple 
white ribbon about her unpowdered hair, Fig- 
chen was radiant with youth, beauty, and modest 
assurance. Her voice did not tremble, her 
memory did not hesitate an instant, as she 
pronounced in Russian the .creed of her new 
faith before the moved assembly. The Arch- 
bishop of Novgorod, he who had formerly 
declared himself against the marriage, shed pious 
tears on receiving her profession of faith, and 
all the assistants felt bound to imitate him. 
They had wept the same, it is true, at the 
conversion of Peter- Ulric, who had made 
grimaces during the ceremony, and had amused 
himself at the expense of the officiant. This 
sensibility was a part of the ceremony. The 
sovereign testified her contentment by present- 
ing the catechumen with a clasp and collar of 
diamonds, which the expert Jeanne- Elizabeth 
estimated at 100,000 roubles. 

But what would the good Christian-August 
have said if he had heard his daughter declare 
before God and man : ' I believe and I confess 
that faith alone doth not suffice for my justifica- 
tion ? 5 Did not Figchen herself need some effort 
to pronounce these words, which separated her 
finally from her past ? Those who would find 
here the influence of the Parisian philosophers 
on her youthful mind have somewhat confused 
their dates. It is extremely probable that at 
this moment the future friend of Voltaire did 
not know of that writer's existence. On leaving 
the chapel she found herself at the end of her 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 53 

strength, and she could not appear at dinner. 
But it was no more either Figchen or the Princess 
Sophia-Frederika who had crossed with unsteady 
feet the threshold of this temple of golden icones. 
That day, in the official liturgy, a prayer was 
introduced for the ' Orthodox (Olagovierna) 
Catherine Aleksieievna.' The Princess of Zerbst 
explained to her husband, it is true, that Catherine 
had simply been added to Sophia, ' as occurs at 
confirmation.' As for Aleksieievna, that sur- 
name, according to the usage of the country, 
stood for ' daughter of Augustus,' Augustus 
having no nearer translation in Russian. The 
good Christian asked no questions. He had had 
for some time to lay in a provision of credulity, 
and there were special graces, no doubt, for 
the benefit of German princes with marriageable 
daughters abroad. 

The betrothal took place next day in the Oti- 
spienski Sobor. The Princess of Zerbst herself 
placed the rings upon the fingers of Catherine 
Aleksieievna and her future husband — two little 
marvels, these rings, worth quite 50,000 ecus, 
said she. Some writers, Rulhiere among others, 
affirm that Catherine received on this occasion the 
title of heir to the throne, with right of succession 
in case of the Grand Duke's death. The fact is 
contested by the most recent Russian authorities. 
It would have required an official manifesto, and 
there is no trace of this. The future Grand 
Duchess continued to win all hearts by the per- 
fect grace and seemliness of her attitude. Her 
mother herself observed with satisfaction that 
she blushed every time that the exigencies of 
her newly acquired rank obliged her to take pre- 



54 CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 

cedence over her who had given her birth. She 
had soon to find out that her daughter, notwith- 
standing, seized the opportunity afforded by her 
new position to escape from a tutelage that had 
long weighed upon her. Nor was she alone in 
finding herself now out of place and unwelcome 
in the position in which she was obliged to live. 
The Princess of Zerbst was treated in general 
as a 'stranger,' and she aroused no sympathy. 
Catherine, for the first time in her life, had now 
money of her own— 30,000 roubles — which- had 
been sent to her by Elizabeth, k poitr son jeu? as 
the phrase was at the Court of Russia— an 
amount which seemed to her an inexhaustible 
treasure. She soon drew upon it largely, and, 
at first, very commendably. Her brother had 
just been sent to Hamburg to finish his studies. 
She declared that she would pay the cost of his 
maintenance. She had her own court, of whom 
the principal functionaries, chamberlains and 
gentlemen of the bedchamber, were carefully 
chosen outside of the coterie that the Princess 
of Zerbst professed to keep in her interests and 
in those of Frederick. The son of the chancellor 
himself, Peter Bestoujef, was one of the number. 
This was one disappointment the more for the 
Princess of Zerbst, and she did not fail to give one 
more instance of her want of tact by showing it. 
Her bad temper, bursting forth on any occasion 
and at the expense of every one, put the finishing 
touch to her unpopularity. There were violent 
scenes between her and the Grand Duke, which 
afforded the latter an opportunity for showing off 
his guard-room manners and language at the 
expense of his mother-in-law. 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 55 

Catherine, nevertheless, rapidly took root in 
her new situation. She even seized the occasion 
to become more intimately acquainted with the 
vast domain that she would one day be called to 
govern. She made, in the company of the Grand 
Duke and of her mother, the journey to Kief 
which, forty years after, she was to make over 
again with such pomp and splendour, and the im- 
pression of this journey was destined never to be 
effaced from her memory, but to have a visible 
influence on her mind and even on the char- 
acter of her future government. Journeying five 
hundred miles without ever leaving the domains 
of Elizabeth, without ever seeing anything but 
crowds prostrate before the omnipotence of 
the Czarina, the little German Princess, ac- 
customed to the narrow horizons of the puny 
sovereignties of her country, felt the rise and de- 
velopment in her of an idea of grandeur and force 
absolutely without limits. It was this idea that, 
become Empress, she felt to be incarnated in her, 
and destined to subdue the world. At the same 
time, with her young, clear-eyed sagacity, her 
already just perception of things, she perceived 
the seamy side of all this pomp and splendour, 
this magnificent empire one day to be hers. At 
St. Petersburg, at Moscow, she had till now had 
before her eyes only the throne glittering with 
gold, the diamond-starred court, the outer 
drapings of the imperial majesty, lined with a 
somewhat barbarous showiness and a half- Asiatic 
luxuriousness, but so much the more imposing. 
She now found herself face to face with the roots 
and sources of this unparalleled splendour : she 
saw the Russian people as they were, she saw 



56 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



them with astonishment, with affright. They 
were sordid and savage, half-clothed, shivering 
with cold and hunger in their smoky hovels, and 
bearing like a cross the double yoke of misery 
and servitude. The lamentable vices of the 
social and political organisation, frightful abuses 
of power, forced themselves upon her. And all 
those attempts at reform, all those generous 
instincts, all the liberal ideas that were to mark 
the first part of her reign, had their origin in this 
first rapid vision of things. 

On her return to Moscow she had also to make 
experience of another side of the picture : the 
little annoyances inseparable from so elevated a 
rank. One evening at the theatre, in the Grand 
Duke's box, opposite to that of the Empress, she 
observed the angry looks of the Empress turned 
in her direction. Presently the obsequious Les- 
tocq, with whom the sovereign had just been 
conferring, presented himself before her, and 
drily, almost brutally, with the visible intention of 
making the rigidity of his attitude felt, explained 
to her the reason of the Czarina's anger. Cathe- 
rine had got into debt — 17,000 roubles, besides 
the 75,000 francs that she had spent in a few 
months. Her treasure had slipped between 
her fingers, one day to shed a shower of gold 
through the empire, through all Europe. But 
what was she to do ? Was she to content herself 
with the three dresses that she had brought to 
Russia ? She had had, at first, to borrow the 
very bedclothes of her mother. She could not 
decently continue in such a fashion. Then, too, 
she had soon found out that in this court, as 
much and more than in that of Zerbst, presents 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 57 

make friends, and that a person in her position 
had no other means of paying for so indispens- 
able an outlay. The Grand Duke himself had a 
marked predilection for this means of forwarding 
the good terms on which he hoped to keep with 
his fiancee. Finally, the Countess Roumiantsof 
had her own way of reading the responsibilities 
of her position as lady in waiting— a responsibility 
which seemed to her to lie in the direction of 
perquisites. 

In her memoirs, from which we take these 
details, Catherine is very severe upon those who 
were at this time in attendance on her, nor does 
she spare the Grand Duke himself, with whom, 
in spite of his generosity, her relations, up to the 
present, had not been specially cordial. Perhaps 
she gave way to the temptation of blackening this 
corner of the picture. A letter in her writing, 
which dates from this period, seems to justify the 
supposition. The Grand Duke had been attacked 
by a pleurisy, in the month of October, and was 
obliged, despite his impatience, to keep his room. 
This is what Catherine writes to him (we respect 
the style and orthography of the document) : — 

' Monsiegneur, ayant consulte ma Mere, sach- 
ant quelle peut beaucoup sur le grand-marechal 
(B rummer), elle m'a permis de lui en parler et 
de faire qu'on vous permettent de jouer sur les 
instrumens. Elle m'a aussy chargee de vous 
demander, Monseigneur, sy vous voulez quelques 
Italiens aujourd'hui apres Midy. Je vous assure 
que je deviendray folle en Votre place sy on 
m'otois tous. Je vous prie au Nom de Dieu, ne 
lui montrez pas ses billets, 

Catherine.' 

5 



58 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



This may do something to rehabilitate the 
Princess of Zerbst herself from the accusations 
of crabbed and cross-grained temper that her 
daughter was fond of bringing against her 
memory. Two months later, in December, we 
find Catherine imploring, with tears and prayers, 
that she may be allowed to see her betrothed, 
who, having recovered from the pleurisy, has just 
been attacked by another and more dangerous 
disease. On his way from Moscow to St. Peters- 
burg, at Hotilof, Peter was brought to a stop : 
smallpox had manifested itself. It was of this 
disease that the betrothed of Elizabeth had died. 
The Czarina promptly sent Catherine and her 
mother out of the way to St. Petersburg, and 
took up her place by the bedside of her son. 
Catherine wrote the tenderest letters to her be- 
trothed, letters in which, for the first time, she 
used the Russian language. The letters, it is * 
true, were really written by her Russian master, 
Adadourof, whose writing she copied. 

This second stay at St. Petersburg was marked 
for Catherine by the arrival of Count Gyllemborg, 
an envoy from Sweden, who brought news of the 
marriage of the heir to the throne, Adolph- 
Frederick, Catherine's uncle, with the Princess 
Ulrica of Prussia. Catherine had already met 
the Swede at Hamburg, in 1740. He had then 
recognised in her 4 a philosophical mind/ He 
now wanted to know how the philosophy was 
getting on, and urged her to read Plutarch, the 
life of Cicero, and the Causes de la Grandettr et de 
la Decadence des Romains. In return, Catherine 
offered to the grave philosopher her portrait, 
* the portrait of a philosopher of fifteen/ composed 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 59 

by her in his honour, according to the custom of 
the age. The original of this composition, which 
she laid claim to later on, was unluckily burnt by 
her, and no copy is to be found in the papers 
of Count Gyllemborg, which are preserved in 
the university of Upsal. In her memoirs Cathe- 
rine states that, on seeing this juvenile work in 
1758, she was astonished at the truth and depth 
of the characteristics she had there noted. It is 
to be regretted that she has not given us the 
chance of verifying this appreciation. 

Peter was not able to set out for St. Peters- 
burg till the end of January. Castera relates that 
Catherine, having embraced her betrothed with 
every sign of the greatest delight, fainted away 
as soon as she had reached her room, and did not 
recover consciousness for three hours. The 
smallpox had not improved the appearance of 
the Grand Duke. The marks on his face, and 
an enormous wig in which he was muffled to hide 
other ravages, rendered him almost unrecog- 
nisable. The Princess of Zerbst was alone in 
finding him better looking than ever — as she 
reported to her husband. Castera no doubt 
exaggerated in his story, as he was accustomed 
to do, and the Princess remembered that letters 
sent through the post at St. Petersburg were 
copied without extra charge. However that 
may have been, the preparations for the marriage 
commenced soon after this auspicious, or in- 
auspicious, return. 

VII 

Such a ceremony had never yet been seen in 
Russia. The marriage of the Czarevitch Alexis, 



60 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

son of Peter I., had taken place at Targau, in 
Saxony, and, before his time, the heirs to the 
throne of Moscow were not future Emperors. 
Inquiries were made in France, where the mar- 
riage of the Dauphin had just been celebrated, 
and also at the court of Saxony. From Versailles 
and from Dresden arrived abundant memoranda, 
minute descriptions, drawings even, giving the 
minutest details of the pomps to be imitated, to 
be surpassed. As soon as the ice was broken up 
on the Neva, English and German vessels fol- 
lowed one another with equipages, furniture, 
draperies, liveries, ordered from every corner of 
Europe. Christian-August sent a present of 
Zerbst goods, heavy pieces of silk broidered with 
gold and silver, much thought of at that time. 
Flowered silks were in fashion then, gold or 
silver on a clear ground. England was specially 
noted for them, and Zerbst came next in order, 
in the opinion of connoisseurs. 

After many alterations, the date of the cere- 
mony was at last fixed for the 21st August. The 
festivities were to last till the 30th. The Grand 
Duke's physicians would have wished for a longer 
postponement. In March Peter had again had 
to take to his bed. A year seemed scarcely long 
enough to set him on his feet again entirely. 
But Elizabeth would not wait. It has been 
suggested that she was in a hurry to get rid of 
Catherine's mother. Probably she had more 
serious reasons for showing impatience. Peter 
was in such uncertain health, that the succession 
to the throne was anything but assured, and the 
remembrance of the young Ivan, shut up in his 
prison, still haunted her. In June 1745 an un- 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 6i 

known man had been found, poniard in hand, 
in Elizabeth's bedroom. He had been put to 
the torture, but had preserved silence. It ap- 
pears, nevertheless, on the best authority, that 
Jeanne- Elizabeth continued to make herself very 
disagreeable. There was no dirty business in 
which she is not implicated during the last weeks 
of her residence in Russia. She plots and plans 
and intrigues without cease. She even goes so 
far as to accuse her daughter, declaring that she 
is having nocturnal rendezvous with her be- 
trothed. The Empress intercepts her corre- 
spondence and carefully examines it. She does 
not invite her husband to the ceremony which is 
about to take place. The Princess of Zerbst has 
long held out the hope of this invitation to her 
husband, telling him to hold himself ready, 
putting him off from day to day and from 
month to month. Frederick himself, misled by 
Mardefeldt, has raised similar expectations in 
the mind of his field - marshal. At length 
Jeanne- Elizabeth has to confess that there is 
more chance of her being herself sent away 
before the ceremony. 

The Princess's brother was the only one of the 
family to be present ; thanks to the treachery, it 
is said, of Bestoujef. Homely, uncouth, poor- 
spirited August of Holstein was not a nice 
relative to produce in public. The English 
ambassador Hindford declares in his despatches 
that he never saw so fine a procession as that 
which conducted Catherine to the church of Our 
Lady of Kasan. The religious ceremony began 
at ten o'clock in the morning, and was not over 
till four o'clock in the afternoon. The orthodox 



62 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



church does things conscientiously. During the 
following days there was a constant succession of 
fetes. Balls, masquerades, state dinners and 
suppers, the Italian opera, the French plays, 
illuminations, fireworks, nothing was wanting to 
the programme. The Princess of Zerbst has left 
us a detailed description of the most interesting 
day, the day of the wedding :— 

1 The ball did not last beyond half-past one in 
the morning ; after which Her Imperial Majesty, 
preceded by the masters of the ceremonies, the 
grand master of household, the grand marshal, and 
the grand chamberlain of the Grand Duke's court, 
and followed only by the bride and bridegroom, 
holding one another's hands, by me, by my brother, 
the Princess of Hesse, the mistress of the robes, 
the staats dames, the cammer frelen, and some 
frelen, directed her steps to the nuptial chamber, 
which the men all quitted as soon as the ladies 
had entered, and the doors were closed, while the 
bridegroom entered the dressing-room. First the 
bride was undressed. Her Imperial Majesty 
took off the crown from her head ; I waived, in 
favour of the Princess of Hesse, the honour of 
putting on the chemise. The mistress of the 
robes put on the dressing-gown, and the rest of 
the ladies helped to adjust the most magnificent 
deshabille imaginable. 

'Except this ceremony,' observes the Princess 
of Zerbst, ' there is much less undressing of bride 
and bridegroom than there is with us. Not a 
man dares enter after the bridegroom has gone 
to undress for the night. The " garland " 
is not danced, and the garter is not handed 
round. 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA-MARRIAGE 63 

' As soon as the Grand Duchess was dressed, 
her Imperial Majesty went into the Grand 
Duke's room, where the Master of the Hunt, 
Count Razonmovski, and my brother had aided 
him to undress. We followed the Princess in. 
He was dressed much like the bride, but he did 
not look near so well. Her Imperial Majesty 
then gave them her benediction, which they 
received kneeling. She embraced them tenderly, 
and left the Princess of Hesse, the Countess of 
Roumiantsof, and myself, to put them to bed. I 
tried to speak to her of the thanks and gratitude 
I owed her, but she only laughed at me.' 

We owe to the pen of Jeanne-Elizabeth a 
description of the suite of rooms reserved for the 
bride and bridegroom : — 

' It consists of four large rooms, one more 
beautiful than another. The principal room is 
the richest ; the hangings are of cloth of silver 
embroidered with silk, of the finest possible 
shading ; the furniture all matches : chairs, 
curtains, portieres. The bedroom is in red velvet, 
almost scarlet. It is embroidered with columns 
and garlands in raised silver ; the bed is in the 
middle. The furniture all matches. It is all so 
fine, so majestic, that you cannot see it without 
being transfixed with admiration.' 

The series of fetes ended with a ceremony of a 
unique kind, never afterwards to be repeated. 
For the last time the Diedouchka (grandsire) of 
the Russian Fleet, a ship constructed by Peter the 
Great himself, according to the legend, was set 
afloat. By a ukase dated September 2, 1724, that 
monarch had ordered that the ship should be thus 
launched on the 30th August of every year, and 



64 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

kept the rest of the time in the monastery of 
Alexander Nevski. After his death, ukase and 
ship were alike forgotten. It was only in 1724 
that Elizabeth thought of it. She attempted the 
ceremony again the following year, on the occasion 
of her nephew's marriage, and then it was done 
with for ever. A raft had to be made to support 
the ship, which could no longer hold water. 
Elizabeth went on board in great pomp, and 
kissed the portrait of her father, which was 
suspended to a mast. 

A month later, the Princess of Zerbst parted 
for ever from her daughter and from the court of 
Russia. In taking leave of the Empress, she 
threw herself at her feet, and asked pardon for all 
the trouble that she had caused her. Elizabeth 
drily replied that ' it was too late to speak about 
it, but that if the Princess had always been so 
humble, it would have been better for everybody.' 
In her own account of the parting scene, Jeanne- 
Elizabeth only speaks of the graciousness of the 
Empress, of the reciprocal tenderness, of the tears 
of regret shed by both. As we have already 
seen, the court tears were at that time current 
coin, and Jeanne- Elizabeth, despite the failure of 
her political enterprises, did not lack diplomacy 
in what she wrote. 

A terrible blow overtook her at Riga. A letter 
of Elizabeth, which reached her there, charged 
her to demand at the court of Berlin the im- 
mediate recall of Mardefeldt. This meant 
absolute ruin to the hopes that Frederick himself, 
generally more wide awake, had founded on the 
Princess's intervention with the Empress ; hopes 
that she had done her best to encourage. It so 



ARRIVAL IN RUSSIA— MARRIAGE 65 

happened that on the very day of the departure 
of Jeanne-Elizabeth from St. Petersburg, Octo- 
ber 10, 1745, the Empress had discovered the 
measures which were being taken by Frederick to 
induce the new husband of the Princess Louise- 
Ulrica, and the brother of the Princess of Zerbst, 
to confirm his claim to the Duchy of Holstein. 
Frederick conceived that the possession of this 
Duchy was incompatible with that of the throne 
of Russia. At the same time came the news of 
the first successes of the Prussian army in Saxony 
(at Sorr, September 30), and the Council of the 
Empire, instantly convoked, decided that it was 
advisable to send a body of soldiers to the support 
of the King of Poland, attacked in his hereditary 
domains. From that time Mardefeldt, the friend 
and political ally of the Princess of Zerbst, and 
consequently of her brother, became impossible at 
St. Petersburg. 

Thus had Jeanne-Elizabeth succeeded in 
making her daughter Grand Duchess of Russia, 
and with very little trouble on her part. On every 
other point, notwithstanding that she had put 
forth all the resources of her intelligence and of 
her indefatigable activity, her failure had been 
complete. Among other things, we may note in 
passing, she had endeavoured to make her hus- 
band a Duke of Courland, and with the same 
want of success. 

Nevertheless, Catherine gave way to tears, not 
mere court tears, over the departure of this rest- 
less mother of hers. And well she might. It was 
a mother, after all, and the single person, amidst 
all her new splendours, whose affection she could 
not call in question, however little she might agree 



65 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



with her advice. Her absence left a great void 
about her. It is from this moment, in such a 
solitude, the great element of strong natures, that 
the real education of the future Empress was to 
begin, an education of which Mile. Card el had not 
d 'earned. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 
I 

Despite her precocity, Catherine was still only a 
child. Despite her orthodox name and her 
official title, she was only a stranger, brought by 
chance into Russia that she might hold high rank 
there, and one to whom it was no easy thing to 
hold herself on the level of so high a station. If 
she were ever to forget it for a moment, as she 
would seem to a certain extent to have done, there 
was always some one to remind her of it sharply 
enough. It seems that once having attained her 
end, once married, Mile. Cardel's pupil somewhat 
relaxed the propriety of demeanour which had 
hitherto gained for her unanimous approbation. 
The 'gracious instructions' of Christian- August 
appeared to have escaped her memory. She was 
soon to receive others, somewhat less paternal. 

On the icth or nth of May 1746, less than 
nine months after the marriage, two documents 
concerning the Grand Duke and Duchess were 
presented for signature to the Empress. Their 
object appeared to be to fix the choice and 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 67 

regulate the conduct of the two 'persons of 
distinction ' who were to be assigned to their 
Imperial Highnesses as master of the household 
and mistress of the robes. Their real end was 
quite other. Under pretext of filling a place in 
the official list of offices, it was really two tutors 
and spies who were set over Catherine and her 
husband. They were put to school again, so to 
speak. And, under colour of indicating the 
programme of this complementary education, it 
was an act of accusation that was drawn up against 
the young people, whose conduct had rendered 
necessary the application of such a measure. The 
•mover in this matter, the concocter of the two 
documents, was Bestoujef in person. 

This work of the chancellor has been preserved. 
It abounds in truly extraordinary revelations, so 
extraordinary, indeed, that we should treat them 
with incredulity if we were not able to check them 
by another testimony. This testimony is to be 
found in Catherine's memoirs. The author of the 
memoirs repeats in almost identical terms every- 
thing that is said by Bestoujef of the doings and 
sayings of Catherine and her husband at this 
period of their life. In certain respects the pen of 
Catherine is even more frank than that of the 
chancellor, and it is from her that we learn the 
most dubious details, even in respect to herself. 

The ' person of distinction ' assigned to the 
Grand Duke as companion will make it his 
business, we read in the chancellor's report, to 
correct certain unseemly habits of his Imperial 
Highness, as, for example, that of throwing the 
contents of his glass at the servants who wait 
table, that of greeting every one who has the 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



honour of approaching him, including even the 
strangers who visit his court, with gross jests and 
indecent pleasantries ; that of disfiguring himself 
in public with grimaces and with incessant con- 
tortions of all his members. 

* The Grand Duke,' we read in the memoirs, 
' passed his time in childish pursuits unworthy of 
his age. . . . He had a theatre of marionettes in 
his room, the stupidest thing in the world. . . * 
The Grand Duke passed his time literally in the 
company of valets. . . . The Grand Duke put all 
his suite under arms : the servants, the huntsmen, 
the gardeners, all had muskets on shoulder . . . 
the corridor of the house served as guard- 
room. . . . The Grand Duke grumbled at me on 
account of what he termed my excessive devo- 
tion ; but having no one but me to speak to 
during mass, he ceased complaining. When the 
Grand Duke learnt that I fasted on Fridays, he 
grumbled at rae more than ever.' 

The same figure of the ill-bred, unmannerly 
child with vicious instincts stands out in both 
reports, even more prominently, in some respects, 
in the second. 

Let us now look at Catherine's share in the 
matter. There are three principal complaints 
brought against her by the chancellor : negli- 
gence in the observances of the orthodox religion ; 
prohibited interference with the affairs of state, 
those of the empire and those of the Duchy of 
Holstein ; excessive familiarity with the young 
lords of the court, the gentlemen in waiting, and 
even the pages and valets. This last point is 
evidently the most serious ; and it is on this that 
Catherine enlarges in her memoirs, in the 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 69 

clearest fashion, leaving no doubt whatever as to 
the familiarity, to say no more, of her relations at 
this time with three at least of the young people 
at court, the three brothers Tchernichef, all tall, 
well-made persons, extremely in favour with the 
Grand Duke. The eldest, Andre, the most 
brilliant of the three, was the favourite of Peter, 
and soon of Catherine. She called him affec- 
tionately her ' petit fils ' ; he gave her the name 
of 'petite mere.' Peter not only tolerated this 
intimacy, he encouraged it, and pushed it to 
excess, even to the forgetfulness of the most 
elementary proprieties. He carried everything 
to excess, and cared little for impropriety of 
demeanour in himself or in those about him. 
While Catherine was still only betrothed, Andre 
had reminded him that the daughter of the 
Princess of Zerbst was destined to be called 
Grand Duchess of Russia, and not Mme. Tcher- 
nichef. Peter burst out laughing at this ex- 
planation, which seemed to him extremely droll, 
and it only served to make him give his friend 
the name of ' fiance de Catherine.' * Votre 
fiance/ he said to her in speaking of the young 
man. Catherine, for her part, tells us that she 
was remonstrated with by one of her valets de 
chambre> Timofei Jevreimof, who felt it to be his 
duty to warn her of the perils to which she was 
exposing herself. She pretends, it is true, to 
have acted in all innocence and ignorance, either 
of evil or of danger. Timofei also warned 
Tchernichef, who, on his advice, feigned illness 
for a time. This was during the carnival of 
1746. In April, when the court was moved 
from the Winter to the Summer Palace, Tcherni- 



70 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



chef reappears, and tries to get into Catherine's 
room. She bars the way, but without thinking 
of fastening her door, which would certainly 
have been more prudent. She holds it half- 
open, and continues a conversation which no 
doubt she finds interesting. Suddenly there 
comes on the scene Count Devierre, one of the 
heroes of the Seven Years' War, at present 
chamberlain at the court, and spy also, it would 
seem. He informs the Grand Duchess that the 
Grand Duke wishes to see her. Next day the 
Tchernichefs are sent away from the court, and 
the same day the ' distinguished lady ' charged to 
look after the conduct of Catherine makes her 
appearance. The coincidence is significant. Nor 
does Elizabeth stop there. She imposes both on 
Catherine and on Peter a sort of ' retreat,' in the 
course of which Simon Todorski, the zealous 
archimandrite and Bishop of Pskof, is instructed 
to interrogate them on their relations with the 
Tchernichefs. The Tchernichefs themselves are 
put under arrest, and undergo a similar interro- 
gation, more pressing still, and no doubt less 
mild. No one confesses to anything. Never- 
theless Catherine speaks of a correspondence 
that she has found means to carry on with Andre 
Tchernichef, even while he is in prison. She 
wrote to him, he replied ; she gave him com- 
missions, which he executed. Let us assume 
that at this time she acted innocently. Later on 
we shall have to be less indulgent. 

It was certainly a singular and unfortunate 
idea, as the event proved, to attempt to treat a 
married woman and a Grand Duchess of Russia 
as if she were a little girl. Catherine was ex- 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 71 

pressly forbidden to write directly and personally 
to any one, even to her father and mother. She 
was only to sign the letters written for her at the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that is to say, under 
the secretaryship of Bestoujef. This was actually 
to invite Catherine to engage in a secret corre- 
spondence, so much in vogue then. She was 
not long in doing so. Just then there arrived at 
the court of St. Petersburg an Italian gentleman 
of the name of Sacromoso, a Knight of Malta. 
A Knight of Malta had not been seen in Russia 
for a long time. He was received with great 
honour. He was present at all the fetes, and at 
both the official and private receptions. One 
day, in kissing the Grand Duchess's hand, he 
slipt into it a note : ' From your mother,' he 
murmured, so as to be heard by no one. At the 
same time he pointed out a musician in the 
Grand Duke's orchestra, a compatriot of the 
name of Ololio, as the man who would take 
charge of the reply. Catherine deftly hid the 
note in her glove. It was not the first time, no 
doubt. Sacromoso had not deceived her : it 
was really her mother who had written to her. 
Having written her answer, she followed atten- 
tively, for the first time — for she had no taste for 
music — the concerts of the Grand Duke. The 
man who had been pointed out to her, seeing her 
approach, carelessly drew his handkerchief out of 
his vest-pocket, so as to leave the pocket wide 
open. Catherine threw her letter into this 
improvised letter-box, and the correspondence 
was started. It lasted during the whole time 
that Sacromoso was at St. Petersburg. Thus 
was put to nought the wisdom of statesmen and 



72 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

the power of an Empress, for having failed to 
reckon with that other power of youth, and that 
other wisdom, which bids that its power be not 
abused. 

II 

We may here pause for a moment to throw 
a rapid glance over the surroundings in which 
Catherine found herself placed, through so many 
long years of initiation. The Russia of the 
eighteenth century is a building all front, a piece 
of scene-painting. Peter I. endeavoured to put 
his court on a European footing, and his suc- 
cessors did their best to maintain and develop his 
work. At St. Petersburg as at Moscow, Elizabeth 
is surrounded with all the pomp and splendour of 
other civilised countries. She has palaces in 
which there are suite after suite of rooms, the 
walls covered with tall mirrors, the floors inlaid, 
the ceilings painted by great artists. She gives 
fetes which are crowded with courtiers dressed in 
velvet and silk, laced with gold, starred with 
diamonds ; where the court ladies appear in the 
newest fashions, with powdered hair, rouged 
cheeks, and a killing patch at the corner of the 
lips. She has her retinue, her dtat de maison, 
her train of chamberlains, of maids of honour, of 
officers of the court, and of servants, which, for 
number and splendour of uniforms, has not its 
equal in Europe. According to certain con- 
temporary accounts, which modern Russian 
writers have perhaps too implicitly believed, the 
imperial residence of Peterhof exceeds in mag- 
nificence that of Versailles. To judge of the 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 73 

matter, we must look a little closely into all these 
splendours. 

And, to begin with, they have for the most 
part something precarious and ephemeral which 
takes off much of their value. Her Majesty's 
palaces, like those of her most opulent subjects, 
are almost entirely made of wood. When they 
catch fire, and that often happens, all the treasures 
with which they are heaped up, furniture and 
works of art, disappear in the disaster. They are 
rebuilt always in a hurry, without an attempt to 
make a durable piece of work. The palace at 
Moscow, three kilometres and a half in circum- 
ference, burns in three hours under the eyes of 
Catherine. Elizabeth gives orders that it is 
to be rebuilt in six weeks, and she is obeyed. 
It is easy to imagine what the construction is 
like. The doors will not shut, the windows 
let in the draught, the chimneys smoke. The 
house of the high priest of Moscow, in which 
Catherine takes refuge after the burning of 
the palace, catches fire three times while she 
is there. 

Then there is no idea of comfort or convenience 
in these outwardly imposing structures. Every- 
where sumptuous reception-rooms, magnificent 
galleries for balls and gala dinners, and scarcely a 
corner to live in — only a few little rooms without 
light or air. The wing of the summer palace at 
St. Petersburg, in which Catherine lives, looks 
out on one side on the Fontanka, which at that 
time is a pool of fetid mire ; on the other, upon 
a court a few feet square. At Moscow it is 
worse still. ' They stowed us away, 5 writes 
Catherine, 'in a wooden wing built during the 

6 



74 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



autumn, so that the water dropt from the ceiling, 
and all the rooms were dreadfully damp. This 
wing contained two ranges of five or six rooms 
each, of which the one looking on the street was 
mine and the other the Grand Duke's. In my 
dressing-room were stowed away all my waiting- 
maids and other servants, so that there were 
seventeen women and girls in one room, a room 
which had, it is true, three large windows, but no 
outlet except through my bedroom, which they 
had to pass through every time they went in and 
out. . . . Besides that, their dining- room was one 
of my anterooms.' At length another com- 
munication with the outer world was made for 
this feminine establishment, by means of a single 
plank going from the window to the ground and 
serving as a ladder. Surely that is different 
enough from Versailles ! 

Catherine sometimes regretted her modest 
dwelling-place by the clock-tower of Stettin, or 
sighed after the castle of her uncle John at 
Zerbst, or that of her grandmother at Hamburg, 
heavy, but solid and spacious constructions in cut 
stone, dating from the sixteenth century. And 
she took her revenge on the discomforts that met 
her at every turn by rhyming these verses that 
have been found among her papers : — 

' Jean batit une maison 
Qui n'a ni rime ni raison : 
L'hiver on y gele tout roide, 
L'ete ne la rend pas froide. 
II y oublia Fescalier, 
Puis le batit en espalier.' 

And not merely were Elizabeth's palaces built 
in this way, they were furnished to match. The 
affectation of settled furniture was then an un- 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 75 

known thing. The things belonged to the 
person, and were taken about from place to place. 
It was a sort of survival of the nomad life of 
the Eastern people. Hangings, carpets, mirrors, 
beds, tables and chairs, the luxuries and the 
necessities, followed the court from the Winter to 
the Summer Palace, from thence to Peterhof, and 
sometimes to Moscow. It goes without saying 
that some of these things got damaged or lost on 
the way. This resulted in an odd mixture of 
magnificence and destitution. One ate off gold 
plate on lopsided tables which had lost a leg 
somewhere. In the midst of masterpieces of 
French or English cabinet-work, there was 
nothing to sit down on. In the home of the 
Tchoglokofs, which Catherine inhabited for 
some time at Moscow, she found no furniture 
at all. Elizabeth herself was often no better 
looked after. But she used every day a cup that 
Roumiantsof had brought from Constantinople by 
her order, and which had cost 8000 ducats. 

Corresponding with this outward disorder and 
dilapidation was the private license to which, 
despite the appearance of extreme pomp and 
refined etiquette, the very dignity of the throne 
abandoned itself. Some idea of this may be 
gathered from the following anecdote, which is 
told by Catherine in her memoirs. A little while 
before the intervention of Bestoujef, which had 
brought about such changes in the environment 
of Catherine and her husband, Peter was guilty 
of an action which may well have contributed, if 
not to provoke, at all events to justify, the severi- 
ties of the chancellor, and to have determined the 
Empress to approve them. The room in which 



76 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



the Grand Duke had set up his marionettes 
communicated by a door, which had been closed 
up since the installation of the young court, with 
one of the salons of the Empress. In this salon 
Elizabeth sometimes had little private dinners 
of a few persons only. There was a table so 
arranged that the presence of servants could be 
dispensed with. One day Peter heard a noise in 
the room, the sound of many voices, and the 
clink of glasses. He bored several holes in the 
door with a gimlet, and, looking through, saw the 
Empress sitting at table with the master of the 
hunt, Prazoumofski, her favourite of the moment, 
wearing a mere dressing-gown. With this 
friendly couple were a dozen of the courtiers. 
Peter was immensely amused by the sight, and, 
not content with enjoying it himself, he hastened 
to ask Catherine to take part in the amusement. 
The Grand Duchess, more prudent, declined the 
invitation. She even warned her husband of the 
impropriety and danger of the proceeding. He 
paid no heed to her, and, in her place, brought in 
the ladies of her suite, made them get up on 
chairs and footstools in order to see better, and 
arranged a whole amphitheatre before the door, 
behind which was exposed the dishonour of his 
benefactress. The incident was soon found out, 
and Elizabeth was extremely angry. She even 
went so far as to remind her nephew that Peter I. 
had also had an ungrateful son. It was a way of 
saying that his head was no more firmly planted 
on his shoulders than was that of the unfortunate 
Alexis. Everyone at the court soon heard of 
the incident, and was amused in turn. 

As for Catherine, no doubt she learnt, if not a 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 77 

moral lesson, which may be doubted, at least a 
lesson in practical wisdom. If she, in after days, 
had her favourites in their dressing-gowns, she 
took care not to be overlooked through a keyhole. 
She either concealed them, or flaunted them 
before the world in all the magic of an incompar- 
able mise en scene. But she learnt from Eliza- 
beth, at this period, other precious lessons. If 
she refused to violate the secret of the private 
banquets in which the Empress forgot herself 
and her state, she was assuredly present, just 
after the departure of the Princess of Zerbst, at 
the state festival in yearly celebration of the day 
on which the daughter of Peter the Great had 
ascended the throne. In the great hall of the 
Winter Palace the tables were laid for 330 under- 
officers and soldiers of the regiment which had 
then accompanied Elizabeth in the conquest of 
her crown. The Empress, in captain's uniform, 
wearing top-boots, a sword by her side, and a 
white feather in her cap, took her place in the 
midst of her 'comrades.' The dignitaries of the 
court, the head officers, and the foreign ministers 
were seated at table in a neighbouring room. No 
doubt it is from having seen and thought over 
such sights in early life that Catherine was able, 
at the right moment, to put on the warlike livery 
with such easy grace, and to win in her turn the 
enthusiasm and support of these same grenadiers, 
ready themselves, thanks to the lessons of the 
past, to strike, and to strike hard. 

The Grand Duke, though more generally 
called elsewhere by his pleasures and his amours, 
was sometimes, for a change, very attentive to 
his wife. These were not her most agreeable 



-s 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



moments. During a whole winter he spoke to 
Catherine of nothing but his project of building 
near his country house a place of rest and re- 
creation in the form of a Capuchin monastery. To 
please him she was forced to design, over and 
over again, the plan of this establishment, which 
he was for ever altering. Nor was this the worst 
she had to put up with. The presence of the 
Grand Duke brought with it other trials, such, for 
example, as the constant neighbourhood of a pack 
of hounds, who infected the place with an intoler- 
able stench. The Empress having forbidden 
this kind of amusement, it occurred to Peter to 
hide his kennel in the bedroom, where Catherine's 
nights soon became a martyrdom. By day the 
barking and the piercing cries of the beaten 
animals left her not a moment's repose. When 
the pack was quiet, Peter seized his violin and 
walked from room to room, merely endeavouring 
to make the greatest possible noise with the in- 
strument. He had a taste for uproar. He had 
also, from an early age, and increasingly, a taste 
for drink. From 1753 he got drunk 'almost 
daily.' And on this point Elizabeth was un- 
happily, and for an obvious reason, unable to 
exercise the needful repression. From time to 
time the Grand Duke returned again to his 
marionettes. Once Catherine found him in full 
uniform, booted and spurred, and with drawn 
sword, standing before a rat suspended in the 
middle of the room. She found that there had 
been a military execution : the unhappy rat 
having devoured a paste sentinel placed before 
a cardboard fortress, a council of war, solemnly 
assembled, had condemned it to be put to death. 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 79 

With her vigorous youth, and the ardour of 
her temperament, Catherine could never have 
endured such an existence, had she not con- 
tracted certain habits capable of diverting her 
by taking her away from this wretched interior. 
In summer, during her stay at Oranienbaum, she 
rose at dawn, slipped on a man's suit, and started 
for the chase, in the company of an old servant. 
' There was a fishing-boat,' she tells us, 1 by the 
shore ; we crossed the garden on foot, our guns 
over our shoulders, we got into the boat, he and 
I and a pointer, and the fisher who was taking us, 
and I shot at the wild ducks in the reeds on both 
sides of the Oranienbaum canal.' Besides the 
chase, horsemanship gave occasion for staying 
out of doors. Elizabeth herself was a passionate 
horsewoman. She felt obliged, however, at one 
time, to cool the growing ardour of Catherine in 
this kind of exercise. With that taste for mas- 
culinity which always haunted her, the Grand 
Duchess liked to sit astride her horse, like a 
man. The Czarina fancied she had discovered 
one of the reasons which hindered her from having 
children. Catherine thereupon procured a saddle 
so arranged that she was able to mount as if it 
were a side-saddle, and to regain her favourite 
position as soon as she was out of Elizabeth's 
sight. A ' divided skirt ' aided her in this 
performance. She took lessons of a German 
groom, the teacher of the corps of cadets, and 
by her rapid progress won a prize of silver spurs. 
She was also very fond of dancing. One evening, 
in one of the frequent balls with which Elizabeth 
enlivened the court, the Grand Duchess made a 
wager with Mme. Arnheim, the wife of the 



8o 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



Saxon minister, that she would not be the first 
to be out of breath. She won the wager. 

in 

It was in such distractions, and in the read- 
ing of Bayle's Dictionary and other less serious 
books, that Catherine was passing her time, when, 
in 1754, a long-looked-for event came to bring a 
great change into the monotony of her life. She 
became a mother. 

How did this come about ? The question 
may seem strange : yet there is no point in the 
whole biography of Catherine which has given 
rise to more controversy. It must be re- 
membered that ten years had elapsed since the 
Grand Duchess's marriage, ten years during 
which her union with Peter had remained without 
issue, while the relations between husband and 
wife had become more and more frigid. A letter 
of the Grand Duke to his wife, published at 
the end of the Russian translation of the memoirs 
of Catherine, and belonging to the year 1746, 
seems to indicate that the rupture was already 
complete. Here is the letter, textually : — 

'Madame, 

Je vous prie de ne point vous incommodes 
cette nuis de dormir avec moi car il n'est plus le terns 
de me tromper, le lit a ete trop etroit, apres deux 
semaines de separation de vous aujourd'hui apres 
mide. 

Votre 
tres infortune* 
mari qui vous ne 
daignez jamais de 
ce nom. Peter/ 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 81 

. At the same time, and in spite of her re- 
tired life, and the careful watch kept over her, 
Catherine was exposed to many temptations, 
was engaged in pursuits where her virtue was 
constantly in peril, and was plunged, so to speak 
(to use the phrase of a Russian historian), in 
an atmosphere of love. As she says in her 
memoirs, without being absolutely pretty, she 
was attractive : that was ' her fort! She called 
forth love in every direction. In the summer of 
1749, a part of which was spent at Raiova, a 
property belonging to the Tchoglokofs, she was 
in a state of mortal dulness. She there saw 
nearly every day the young Count Razoumofski, 
who lived near, and who used to ride over to 
dinner or supper and back to his chateau at 
Pokrovskoie, a distance of nearly forty miles 
each way. Twenty years later Catherine asked 
him what had induced him to come over every 
day to share the ennui of the Grand Ducal Court, 
when at his own house he had, whenever he 
pleased, the best company in Moscow. 4 Love,' 
replied he, without a moment's hesitation. 
* Love ? But who could you have been in love 
with at Raiova?' 'You.' She laughed aloud. 
It had never occurred to her. 

It was not always so, however. Tchoglokof 
was ugly, Razoumofski too discreet. Others 
came forward who had neither the defect of the 
one nor the defect or merit of the other. In 
the first place, one of the three exiles of 1745, 
Zahar Tchernichef, reappears at the court in 
1 75 1. He finds that Catherine is handsomer 
than ever, and does not hesitate to tell her so. 
She hears him with pleasure. He takes ad- 



82 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



vantage of a ball at which, according to the 
custom then (and until quite recently), people 
exchanged ' mottoes,' little pieces of paper con- 
taining verses more or less ingeniously turned, to 
present her with a billet-doux full of passionate 
declarations. She enjoys the joke, and keeps 
it up with the best grace in the world. He 
wishes to force his way into her room in the 
guise of a lackey ; she merely points out the 
danger of the undertaking, and the correspond- 
ence by ' mottoes ' goes on again. A part of 
this correspondence is to be seen. It was pub- 
lished anonymously, as a specimen of the style 
employed by a lady of rank, in the eighteenth 
century, in writing to her lover. The contents 
seem to leave no doubt that it was not Zahar 
Tchernichef who could lay claim to this title. 

After the Tchernichefs came the Saltykofs. 
There were two brothers of this name among 
the chamberlains of the Grand Ducal Court. 
The family was one of the oldest and most 
important in Russia. The father was general 
aide-de-camp ; the mother, ne'e Princess Galitzine, 
had rendered services to Elizabeth in 1740, 
about which the Princess of Zerbst was particu- 
larly well informed. i Mme. de Soltickof suc- 
ceeded in captivating whole families. She was 
Galitzine. Further, she was beautiful, and she 
manoeuvred in a way that ought to be forgotten 
as soon as possible. She went with one of her 
waiting-women into the barracks of the Guards, 
she abandoned herself, she drank, she gambled, 
lost, let them win. . . . She had for lovers the 
300 grenadiers who accompanied her Majesty,' 
The elder of the two brothers was not hand- 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 83 

some ; or, as Catherine put it, he could rival 
the unfortunate Tchoglokof in both wit and 
beauty. The younger, Sergius, was ' beau comme 
le jour.' In 1752 he was twenty-six years of 
age, and he had been married for two years to 
a freiline of the Empress, Matrena Pavlovna 
Balk, a love-match. It was at this epoch that 
Catherine fancied he was paying court to her. 
She went almost every day to see Mme. 
Tchoglokof, who, being in an interesting con- 
dition, kept her room. Always finding the 
handsome Sergius there, she began to doubt 
whether he came entirely to see the mistress of 
the house. It will be seen that she had acquired 
some experience. It was not long before the 
handsome Sergius explained himself more de- 
finitely. The surveillance of Mme. Tchoglokof 
was just now more easy-going than usual. He 
arranged to divert that of the husband, who, 
himself in love with the Grand Duchess, might 
be more troublesome. He pretended to dis- 
cover that the good Tchoglokof had a remarkable 
talent for poetry. Highly flattered, he would 
retire into a corner to fill up bouts-rimds, or to 
turn into verse the themes that were liberally 
supplied to him. Meanwhile, there was a chance 
of uninterrupted talk. The handsome Sergius 
was not only the handsomest man at the court, 
he was a man of resources ; ' a demon for in- 
trigue/ says Catherine. She heard his first 
declarations in silence. She certainly could not 
have thus intended to discourage him from going 
on. At last she asked him what he wanted of 
her. He had no difficulty in painting, in the 
most vivid colours, the happiness that he had 



8 4 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



pictured for himself. ' And your wife ? ? said 
she. It was almost a confession, and it reduced 
to a very fragile obstacle the distance which still 
separated them. He was by no means taken 
aback, and resolutely threw the poor Matrena 
Pavlovna overboard, speaking of a youthful error, 
declaring that he had been mistaken in his choice, 
and that 'the gold had soon changed into lead.' 
Catherine assures us that she did all she could 
to turn him aside from his pursuit, even to the 
point of insinuating that he had come too late. 
'How do you know ? My heart may be already 
lost.' It was not a happy means. The truth 
is, as she admits, that the difficulty she had 
in getting rid of her handsome admirer came 
mainly from herself; she liked him extremely. 
A hunt was organised by the poet Tchoglokof, 
in the course of which the occasion so long 
sought by Sergius presented itself. They were 
alone. The tete-a-tete went on for an hour and 
a half, and to bring it to an end Catherine 
had to have recourse to heroic means. The 
scene is charming, as Catherine describes it in 
her memoirs. Before going, Saltykof would have 
her admit that he was not indifferent to her. 
'Yes, yes,' she murmured at last, 'but go.' 
' Good, I have your word/ cried the young man, 
putting spurs to his horse. She would take back 
the fatal word. She cried after him, 'No, no ! ' 
' Yes, yes ! ' he cried from the distance. And so 
they parted ; doubtless, to meet again. 

Shortly after, it is true, Sergius Saltykof was 
obliged to leave the court ; indeed, on account of 
the scandal which his relations with the Grand 
Duchess had caused, Elizabeth severely re- 



the second education of Catherine 85 



primanded the Tchoglokofs, and the handsome 
Sergius received a month's congd, with instruc- 
tions to go and see his family in the country. 
He fell ill, and was only able to return to court 
in 1753, when he once more joined the inner 
circle, mainly of young people, that had formed 
around Catherine, in which there was now another 
cavalier of high rank and fine bearing, Leon 
Narychkine, who was already playing the part 
of court fool, which he was to keep up through 
so great a part of the future reign, but for the 
moment, no doubt, aiming at something more 
than that. Catherine was now on the best terms 
with the two Tchoglokofs. She had succeeded 
in making a friend of the wife, on the ground 
that she repelled the advances of her husband ; 
and in making the husband himself her slave, by 
cunningly tantalising him with expectations. She 
thus had the confidence of both, and was able to 
count on their discretion. Whether from pru- 
dence or from natural inconstancy, the handsome 
Sergius seemed now more reserved, so that by a 
change of parts it was now Catherine who com- 
plained of the lack of his attentions. But soon a 
fresh intervention of the supreme power, and this 
time quite unexpected, gave a new turn to the 
second chapter of the old romance. The point is 
a little difficult to explain ; it would be yet more 
difficult to believe, were it not for the testimony 
of Catherine herself. This is the story she gives 
in her memoirs. At a few days interval, Sergius 
and herself were summoned, one before the 
chancellor Bestoujef, the other to a confidential 
interview with Madame Tchoglokof, and both 
received, on the subject which occupied them so 



86 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



closely, hints which must have surprised them not 
a little. Speaking in the Empress's name, the 
governor and guardian of the Grand Duchess's 
virtue, and of the honour of her husband, explained 
to the young woman that there were state reasons 
which must override all other considerations, 
even the legitimate desire of a wife to remain 
faithful to her husband, if that husband proved 
incapable of confirming the peace of the empire 
by ensuring the succession to the throne. In 
conclusion, Catherine was peremptorily ordered 
to choose between Sergius Saltykof and Lev 
Narychkine, and Madame Tchoglokof was per- 
suaded that she preferred the latter. Catherine 
protested. ' Well, then, the other,' said the gou~ 
vernante. Catherine kept silence. Bestoujef, 
with somewhat more reserve, spoke after the 
same manner to the handsome Sergius. 

In due course Catherine became enceinte, and 
after two miscarriages gave birth to a son on the 
20th September 1754. Who was the father of 
the child ? The question is a natural one, and 
all that we know on the subject leaves it still an 
open question. Physically and morally, especially 
morally, Peter resembled his legitimate father. 
Few, however, of his contemporaries were will- 
ing to admit the hypothesis of this paternity. 
Various suppositions were current at the time. 
4 The child,' wrote the Marquis de THopital, ' is, 
they say, the Empress's own, which she has 
changed with the Grand Duchess's.' In a later 
despatch, it is true, the marquis took back his 
story, saying that he had been better informed ; 
but Elizabeth did much to give it credit, and her 
conduct at the time of the Grand Duchess's con- 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 87 

finement was calculated to lend colour to the 
rumours which were in the air. The child had 
no sooner been born, and thereupon summarily 
baptized, than the Czarina ordered him to be 
taken away, and disappeared after him. Catherine 
did not see her child again for six weeks. She 
was left alone with her chambermaid, without 
even the necessary attentions which her situation 
demanded. The bed on which she had been 
delivered was placed between a door and two 
enormous windows, through which a cutting 
draught entered. As she was in a constant per- 
spiration, she wished to return to her ordinary 
bed. La Vladislavova dared not take upon 
herself to grant this request. Catherine wanted 
something to drink. The answer was the same. 
At last, after three hours, the Countess Chouvalof 
came on the scene, and gave her some assistance. 
That was all. She saw no one else either that 
day or the following. The Grand Duke was 
feasting with his friends in a neighbouring room. 
After the solemn baptism of the child, the mother 
received, on a plate of gold, as a sort of recom- 
pense fo»*-her trouble, a ukase of the Empress, 
presenting her with 100,000 roubles and some 
trinkets. The trinkets were so valueless that 
Catherine tells us she would have been ashamed 
to give them to one of her women. She was 
glad of the money, for she had now a good many 
debts. Her joy was of short duration. A few 
days afterwards Baron Tcherkassof, the Empress's 
treasurer, - the Cabinet Secretary/ according to 
the official designation, came to beg back the 
amount. The Empress had given a second 
order of payment for the same amount, and there 



88 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



was not a kopeck in the treasury. Catherine 
knew very well that it was a trick of her husband. 
Peter had been very angry on hearing that she 
had received 100,000 roubles, while he had had 
nothing, he who had at least equal rights, it 
seemed to him, to the imperial munificence. To 
calm him, Elizabeth, to whom signatures cost 
nothing, had made another demand on her 
treasury, without a thought of the difficulty of 
her treasurer. At the end of six weeks the 
' purification ' of the Grand Duchess was cele- 
brated with great pomp, and on this occasion 
she was allowed to see her child. She admired 
it. She was allowed to hold it during the cere- 
mony ; then it was again taken away. At the 
same time she learnt that Sergius Saltykof had 
been sent to Sweden with the news of the little 
Grand Duke's birth. At that time, for a noble- 
man occupying his position at the court of 
Russia, a change of place of this kind was rarely 
a favour. For the most part it was the applica- 
tion of a sort of judicial measure, even when it 
was not an actual punishment. From this point 
of view, the departure of the young chamberlain 
was not without its significance. 

We shall not insist further. This historical 
question, turning as it does on a disputed pater- 
nity, has, to our thinking, we must admit, a very 
secondary importance. So far as Catherine is 
concerned, the only really important point in the 
history of the intellectual and moral development 
of her personality— which is what we are study- 
ing — is the uncontested and incontestable pre- 
sence of the handsome Sergius beside the cradle 
of her first child, with Lev Narychkine, Zahar 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 89 

Tchernichef, and perhaps others in the back- 
ground. And there is also this kind of incomplete 
maternity of hers, outrageously suspected by 
public rumour, cruelly curtailed by an abuse of 
power which is almost a violence, and in which 
something equivocal seems to hide under the 
cloak of etiquette, so counter to the most 
natural rights and functions. There is, too, the 
isolation and abandonment, now more profound 
and sorrowful than ever, into which the young 
wife and mother sinks, between the empty cradle 
and the long deserted nuptial couch. 

IV 

If Catherine had been a vulgar, or even an 
ordinary, woman, the existence in which she was 
thus placed would doubtless have served to add 
one or many chapters to the chronique galante of 
the eighteenth century. Sergius Saltykof would 
have had a successor, the Grand Duke new 
motives to doubt the virtue of his wife ; but that 
would have been all. Catherine was not an ordi- 
nary woman ; she has superabundantly proved 
it. Nor was she one of those who make the 
martyrs of the domestic hearth. She replaced 
the handsome Sergius ; she entered definitely, 
blindly, on a path which was to lead to the 
most colossal and the most cynical display of 
imperial licence known to modern history ; but 
she did not allow herself to become absorbed in 
it. In abandoning herself, her honour, and her 
virtue to ever-new distractions, to pleasures fol- 
lowed with an ever-increasing ardour, she never 
meanly forgot her rank, her ambition, and the 
7 



go 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



supremacy that a near future was to signalise. 
On the contrary, she drew herself together, she 
fell back upon her own resources, and carried yet 
further forward her self-culture, that adaptation 
of her mind and character to a vaguely-realised 
destiny, of which we have indicated the com- 
mencement. 

It is at this moment that we see her more 
actively absorbed than ever in the study of the 
Russian language and literature. She reads all 
the Russian books that she can lay her hands on. 
They do not give her the idea of a very high 
intellectual level. She is unable afterwards to 
remember the name of any of these books, except 
a Russian translation in two volumes of the 
Annals of Baronius. But she obtains from her 
reading a conviction destined never to leave her, 
a conviction which is to imprint a definite stamp 
upon her future reign, and to make it a sort of 
continuation of that of Peter the Great : her 
adopted country's absolute necessity of taking 
pattern from the West, in order to raise itself to the 
height of its newly-acquired position in Europe. 

At the same time she gives herself seriously to 
the study of serious books. Despite the recom- 
mendation of Count Gyllemborg, and the atten- 
tion she had paid to it, she had not read the 
Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des 
Romains. She now makes the acquaintance of 
Montesquieu, reading LE sprit des Lois, which is 
only laid aside for the Annals of Tacitus and the 
Histoire Universelle, as she calls it, which, no 
doubt, means the Essai sur les Mosurs et lEsprit 
des Nations of Voltaire. 

Tacitus impresses her by the vivid reality of 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 91 

his pictures, and by the striking analogy which 
she finds in them with the men and things around 
her. Across all the space of time and circum- 
stance she perceives the unchangeable identity of 
certain types which compose human nature, and 
certain laws which it obeys. She sees the re- 
production of the same traits of character, the 
same instincts, the same passions, the same com- 
binations of interests, and the same formulas of 
government, reproducing the same consequences. 
She learns to disentangle the play of elements 
so differently associated, and yet unvarying ; to 
penetrate their inner mechanism and appreciate 
their true value. Her hard and dry mind — the 
philosophical mind with which the Swedish diplo- 
matist credited her — finds itself singularly at 
home with the abstract, detached, impersonal 
manner of judging of events and their causes 
peculiar to the Latin historian ; his way of soar- 
ing above humanity, which he seems to observe 
as a disinterested spectator, having himself other 
claims on existence. 

It is, however, Montesquieu who attracts and 
satisfies her the most. He does not confine him- 
self to presenting the facts, he theorises upon 
them. He provides her with formulas ready 
made, which she appropriates with ardour. She 
makes them her Breviary, to use her own pic- 
turesque expression. She declares later that this 
book, L Esprit des Lois, ought to be 'the 
Breviary of every sovereign of common sense.' 
This is not to say that she understands it. 
Montesquieu was probably, during a good half 
of the eighteenth century, the most widely read, 
and the least understood, man in Europe. No 



92 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



doubt Catherine and others found in him a good 
store of ideas and theories, which they were 
ready to apply in an isolated manner. As for 
appropriating the doctrine as a whole, in its true 
spirit, few indeed were capable of that. And as 
for applying it en bloc, to use a modern phrase, 
that occurred to no one. As a matter of fact it 
would have led, and the author of U Esprit des 
Lois was probably himself far from realising it, 
to an utter upset of the political and social rdgime 
of the time, and to a revolution more radical than 
that which the end of the century saw accom- 
plished. What this doctrine attacked was the 
principle itself of the vices which he analysed, 
the abuses which he pointed out, the catastrophes 
which he foresaw, in the constitution of human 
societies. Now, to suppress this principle was 
not merely to overturn such and such an institu- 
tion or manner of government, nor even, nor 
mainly, such and such a government itself, it was 
to set aside the great idea which governed the 
world, and which is perhaps to govern it for 
ever ; it was to substitute an ideal, and perhaps 
unrealisable, equilibrium of natural forces for the 
sharp, constant battle of interests and passions 
which has for all time constituted human life, 
which is perhaps life itself. 

Of all that Catherine is still unaware. But 
she has pleased to attribute to herself a ' re- 
publican soul/ after the fashion of Montesquieu, 
without too closely considering what that meant 
in the thought of the illustrious author, without 
caring too much what it meant in hers. The 
idea pleased her as it pleased so many ; she 
adopted it as she might have done a feather or 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 93 

a flower in fashion. A certain prepossession 
against the abuse of despotism, the admitted 
necessity of substituting, in the conduct of men 
and things, the counsels of universal reason for 
the inspirations of individual caprice ; there was a 
vague liberalism in that, no doubt. Catherine 
was one day to astonish the world by the revolu- 
tionary boldness of certain maxims flung in the 
face of Europe in an official document She had 
copied them out of Montesquieu and Beccaria, 
but without understanding them. When their 
meaning was revealed to her in their passage 
from theory to practice, no doubt she was taken 
by surprise. But she continued to govern in a 
reasonable, and even, to a certain point, liberal, 
way. Montesquieu had done his work. 

What she is prompt in understanding, with 
the reflective mind and the infallible good sense 
with which nature has endowed her, is that there 
is a flagrant contradiction, apparently inevitable, 
between the hatred of despotism and the state 
of a despot. This established fact must certainly 
clash with the overbearing instincts that are 
already at work in her. It will one day set 
her at variance with her philosophy, or at all 
events with certain philosophers. Meanwhile, 
some one is found to prove to her that what 
she fears is vain, and this, too, is a philosopher, 
Voltaire. Doubtless the introduction of caprice 
in the sway of human destinies is a fault, and 
may become a crime ; doubtless it is reason 
that should govern the world, but still there 
must be some one to act as its representative 
here below. This once granted, the formula 
is seen at once : the despotic government may 



94 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



be the best sort of government possible ; it Is 
indeed the best, if it be reasonable. To this 
end it must be enlightened. All the political 
doctrine of the author of the Dictionnaire 
Philosophique lies in that, and also the explana- 
tion of his admiration, undoubtedly sincere, for 
the Semiramis of the North. Catherine has 
realised this formula : she is enlightened by 
philosophy, by that of Voltaire in especial ; she 
governs reasonably, she is reason itself, set over 
the direction of forty millions of men ; she is 
a divinity, the prototype of those that an odd 
deviation of intelligence and a grotesque freak 
of imagination were to instal over the altars 
profaned by the orgy of revolution. 

It is thus that Voltaire becomes the favourite 
author of Catherine. This time she has found 
her man, the master par excellence, the supreme 
director of her conscience and her thought. He 
instructs without alarming her, accommodating 
the ideas that he gives her with the passions 
that she has. With that, he possesses, for all 
the ills of humanity, which he points out with 
Montesquieu, which he deplores with him, a 
number of simple remedies, within easy reach, 
and of easy application. Montesquieu is a great 
scientist working on broad lines. According to 
him, it would be needful to begin at the begin- 
ning and change everything. Voltaire is an 
empiric of genius. He takes one by one the 
sores that he discovers on the human body, 
and professes to heal them. An ointment here, 
a cautery there, and all will be gone, the sick 
man will be well. And what clearness of lan- 
guage, what limpidity of thought, with what 



THE SECOND EDUCATION OF CATHERINE 95 

wit ! Catherine, like most of her contem- 
poraries, is charmed, dazzled, fascinated, by this 
great magician of the art of writing, and, like 
them, by his defects as much as by his qualities, 
more perhaps ; by what there is of superficiality 
in his vision of things, of childishness some- 
times in his conceptions, of injustice often in 
his judgments, and especially by the licentious, 
irreligious, and irreverent side of his attacks 
on established beliefs, for which the philo- 
sophical tendencies of the time, and the need of 
liberty, then agitating the minds of men, were 
not alone accountable. If Voltaire did not aid 
Catherine to exchange the Lutheran religion 
for the orthodox faith, he did much at all 
events to allay the memory of this doubtful 
step, and to save her, if not a remorse, at least 
some uneasiness of mind, at the same time that 
he set her at ease in regard to certain other 
transactions, which could not harmonise with 
the rigid morals of any catechism, Greek or 
Lutheran. Essentially intellectual as was the 
immorality of the author of La Pucelle, it lent 
itself also to other interpretations, which might 
justify every sort of liberty, including that of con- 
temporary morals. For that too Voltaire was 
popular, and for that he was liked by Catherine. 

No doubt also he took hold on her by other 
nobler parts of his genius, by the humanitarian 
ideas which made him the apostle of religious 
tolerance, by the generous outbursts which forced 
all Europe to applaud in him the defender of 
Calas and Sirven. Catherine certainly owed 
him some of her best inspirations. 

But to him, as to Montesquieu and Tacitus, 



96 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



she owed especially, at this period, a certain 
intellectual gymnastic, a certain flexibility in 
the handling of great political and social pro- 
blems, a sort of general preparation, in short, 
for her future work. 

And at the same time, with the rapid ripening 
of her intelligence in its contact with these great 
minds, and the corresponding development of 
her practical qualities, she acquires new tastes 
and habits which bring with them other benefits. 
She begins to find pleasure in the society ot 
some of those serious personages who had 
frightened her in her childhood. She seeks 
the company of certain old women, far from 
being in favour at a court such as Elizabeth's, 
and she holds long conversations with them. 
She thus makes progress in the Russian lan- 
guage ; she follows up the information she has 
derived from la Vladislavova as to the ins 
and outs of a society that she desires to know 
so intimately. She gains, too, many a friend 
and ally, destined one day to be of the greatest 
service. 

Thus was the second education of Catherine 
brought about. 



BOOK II 



IN PURSUIT OF POWER 
CHAPTER I 

THE YOUNG COURT 
I 

After having given birth to the heir to the 
throne, Catherine had not merely to endure 
the singular treatment that we have recorded, 
she found herself, by the very fact of this birth, 
relegated to the second place. She was still 
a person of high rank, but of great show rather 
than of great importance. She had ceased to 
be the sine qua non of the dynastic programme, 
the necessary being on whom were fixed the 
eyes of all the world, from the Empress to the 
humblest subject of the empire, all waiting for 
the great event. She had accomplished her task. 

It was, nevertheless, not long after this decisive 
event that she came, little by little, to assume 
a role such as no Grand Duchess had ever 
played before, or was ever to play again, in 
Russia. What this so-called ' young court' was, 
that of Peter and Catherine, during a period of 
six years, from 1755 to January 5, 1762, the 
day of Elizabeth's death, nothing in the history 



93 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of any other country, or of Russia itself at any 
other time, can give an idea. At certain 
moments the diplomatists sent to St. Peters- 
burg were embarrassed to know to whom they 
should address themselves ; some, among others 
H anbury Williams, the English ambassador, 
did not hesitate to knock at the lesser door. 

A detailed account of this epoch would take 
us beyond our limits. We will indicate only 
its most salient features, namely, the entrance 
of Catherine into the political arena, her liaison 
with Poniatowski, and the violent crisis brought 
about by the fall of the all-powerful Bestoujef, 
in the course of which the future Empress 
played her first game on the ground of her 
future triumphs, and gained her first victory. 

It was love that brought Catherine into the 
domain of politics. She was destined to per- 
petually mingle these two elements, so divergent 
in appearance ; and it was her art, or her good 
fortune, to almost always obtain a good result 
from a mixture which was so often unlucky to 
others. Her first escape from the narrow limits 
within which Elizabeth had tried to keep her 
for ever was an intervention in the affairs of 
Poland. Now it certainly did not occur to her 
to interest herself in these affairs until she had 
become interested in those of a certain handsome 
Pole. And she had to be helped even to this 
discovery. 

In 1755 a new ambassador came to St. Peters- 
burg from England, then desirous of renewing 
the treaty of subsidies which, since 1742, had 
included Russia in its system of alliances, anxious 
also to make sure of the support of the Russian 



THE YOUNG COURT 



99 



forces in the event of a rupture with France. 
Guy Dickens, the then ambassador, found him- 
self at a loss in so bustling a court as Elizabeth's, 
where a state question was settled between a 
ball, a play, and a masquerade. At his own wish, 
a new man was found, more fitted to cope with 
the difficulties of the post. This was Sir Charles 
Hanbury Williams, a happy choice, for the friend 
and boon-companion of Robert Walpole had been 
trained in a good school, and he never missed a 
ball or a masquerade. He was not long, how- 
ever, in finding that he was after all no further 
forward. His attentions to Elizabeth seemed to 
be quite agreeable to her, but, politically speaking, 
were of no avail. Whenever he tried to get on 
the positive ground of no matter what negotia- 
tion, the Czarina evaded the question. Where 
he would find an Empress, he found no more 
than an amiable dancer of the minuet, and some- 
times a Bacchante. At the end of a few months 
he came to the conclusion that Elizabeth was not 
a woman with whom one could have any serious 
talk, and he decided to look elsewhere. Foiled 
by the present he looked to the future. The 
future was the young court 

But there again he was repelled by the aspect 
of the future Emperor. It seemed to him at first 
that he would lose his time as he had done before. 
But he was clear-sighted, like his countrymen, 
and his eyes fell upon Catherine. Perhaps he 
felt the current of other hopes and other decep- 
tions setting in the same direction. Was not 
the great Bestoujef himself beginning to recant 
his early beliefs ? Williams could not but see the 
significant advances, the disguised approaches, 



IOO 



CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



that were being made to the Grand Duchess. 
He was prompt in decision. He had heard the 
rumours of certain adventures in which the hand- 
some Saltykof and the handsome Tchernichef 
had figured, and, adventurous himself in his 
way, might he not himself, for a moment, have 
tried to follow on this romantic trail ? At all 
events he did not waste time over it. Catherine 
made him welcome, talked with him on any 
subject, even serious subjects, which Elizabeth 
would not hear of ; but she looked elsewhere. 
He followed the look, and, being a practical man, 
he at once chose his part. He left the way open 
to a young man in his suite. It was Poniatowski. 

The obscure origin of this romantic hero, whom 
an unhappy chance, a chance fatal to Poland, had 
thus brought into the history of his country, was 
well known. Williams, who before coming to 
Russia had for some years been minister at the 
Court of Saxony, had there met with Ponia- 
towski, the son of a parvenu, and the nephew 
of two of the most powerful Polish noblemen, the 
Czartoryskis. He interested himself in him, and 
offered to begin his political education by taking 
him to St. Petersburg. The Czartoryskis, on 
their side, were glad to seize the occasion of thus 
defending, at the Russian court, both their own 
interests, and, as they understood them, the in- 
terests of their country. They were just setting 
on foot in Poland a new political movement, one 
of compromise and of cordial understanding with 
the hereditary enemy, Russia, and of desertion 
of the traditional allies of the republic, France 
in particular. They turned their back on the 
West, and made head for the North, hoping to 



THE YOUNG COURT 



101 



find a port of refuge for the unhappy vessel, 
shattered by the tempest, and leaking in every 
timber, of which they professed to be the pilots. 
This scheme was precisely in accord with that 
which Williams himself wished to further. 

The future King of Poland was then twenty- 
two. Pleasant to look at, he could not rival 
Sergius Saltykof in beauty, but he was an 
accomplished gentleman of the period ; with his 
varied acquirements, refined manners, cosmo- 
politan education, and superficial tincture of 
philosophy, he was an accomplished specimen of 
the kind, and the first that had come before the 
notice of Catherine. He personified to her that 
mental culture and worldly polish of which the 
writings of Voltaire and of Mme. de Sevigne 
had given her a notion and a taste. He had 
travelled, and at Paris he had belonged to that 
brilliant society whose charm and glitter had 
taken the admiration of all Europe, a very 
royalty, and less contested than every other. 
He was in some sort an emanation of it, and had 
both its merits and its defects. He could talk 
playfully on the most abstract questions, and 
touch lightly on the most risky subjects. He 
knew how to turn a love-letter gracefully, and 
to manipulate a commonplace into a madrigal. 
He had sensibility, and he knew the melting 
mood. He had a stock of romantic ideas, which 
could give him on occasion an adventurous and 
heroic air, hiding away, as under flowers, a 
cold dry nature, an imperturbable egoism, a 
very depth of cynicism. He united all the 
qualities likely to take her heart, even to a 
certain frivolity, always so attractive to her, 



102 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



perhaps by a mysterious affinity with her own 
firm and stable nature. 

On his own account, Poniatowski had a further 
merit, strange enough, almost incredible, in a 
young man just come from Paris. ' A severe 
education,' he tells us in an autobiographical frag- 
ment which has reached us, ' had kept me out of 
all vulgar debauchery ; an ambition of winning 
and holding a place in what is called, especially 
at Paris, high life, had stood by me in my travels, 
and a concourse of singular little circumstances 
in the liaisons that I had barely entered upon in 
foreign countries, in my own, and in Russia, had 
seemed expressly to reserve me all in all for her 
who has disposed of all my destiny.' 

Bestoujef, too, encouraged the young Pole, who, 
however, showed a certain distrust in the matter. 
He had heard gloomy tales of what had happened 
to young men who had pleased Empresses and 
Grand Duchesses of Russia, after they had 
ceased to please. Bestoujef had recourse to Lev 
Narychkine, who generously consented to show 
the new favourite the road that he no doubt knew 
well. Narychkine was always the most accom- 
modating of men. But it was probably Catherine 
herself who bore down the last resistances. Her 
beauty alone, had there been no other attraction, 
would have sufficed. This is how the favoured 
lover afterwards described it : — 

' She was five-and- twenty ; she had not long 
recovered from her first childbed ; she was at 
that perfect moment, which is generally, for 
women who have beauty, the most beautiful. 
With her black hair, she had a dazzling whiteness 
of skin, the colour [sic] of the eyelids black and 



THE YOUNG COURT 103 

very long, a Grecian nose, a mouth that seemed 
made for kisses, hands and arms perfect, a slim 
figure, rather tall than short, an extremely active 
bearing, and nevertheless full of nobility, the 
sound of her voice agreeable and her laugh as 
gay as her humour, which caused her to pass 
with facility from the most sportive, the most 
childish amusements, to the driest mathematical 
calculation/ 

Gazing at her, 'he forgot,' said he, 'that there 
was a Siberia.' And soon those about the 
Grand Duchess were the spectators of a scene 
which went far to settle the floating conjectures. 
Count Horn, a Swede who was on a visit to 
St. Petersburg, and a friend of Poniatowski, was 
in the ' set ' of the Grand Duchess. One day, as 
he entered the room, a little Bolognese dog 
belonging to her began to bark furiously. It 
did the same to all the other visitors, until at 
last Poniatowski appeared, and the little traitor 
rushed up to him with an air of the greatest 
delight, and with all the tender demonstrations 
in the world. 

' My friend,' said the Swede, taking the new- 
comer aside, 'there is nothing so terrible as a 
little Bolognese dog ; the first thing I have 
always done with the women I was in love with 
is to give them one, and I have always found 
out by their means if there was any one more 
favoured than I.' 

Sergius Saltykof, on his return from Sweden, 
was not long in finding out that he had a suc- 
cessor. But he had no inclination to be jealous. 
If, later on, Catherine was not particularly con- 
stant to her lovers, it was certainly the lovers them- 



io4 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

selves who first set her the example. Even before 
Poniatowski was in favour, Saltykof carried his in- 
solence to the point of giving rendezvous which 
he did not keep. One night Catherine waited 
for him in vain till three o'clock in the morning. 

Williams had thus at his disposition, with 
regard to the Grand Duchess, a powerful in- 
fluence. He did not, however, neglect other 
means. He had soon discovered the money 
difficulties in which Catherine was desperately 
entangled. In this matter the remonstrances of 
Elizabeth had been of no avail. Despite her 
love of order, and even certain bourgeois habits of 
economy, Catherine was all her life a spendthrift. 
Her taste for display carried all before it, and 
also her way of considering the utility of certain 
outlays that the mercenary spirit of her native 
country had implanted in her mind, and that the 
experience acquired in her new surroundings had 
only developed. Faith in the sovereign efficacy 
of the ' tip ' was one of the beliefs to which she 
remained most faithful. Williams offered his 
services, which were gladly accepted. The total 
amount borrowed by Catherine from this source 
is unknown. It must have been considerable. 
Williams had carte blanche from his government. 
Two receipts, signed by the Grand Duchess, for 
a sum-total of 50,000 roubles, bear date July 21 
and November 11, 1756, and the loan of July 21 
was not the first, for, in asking for it, Catherine 
writes to Williams's banker : ' I have some hesita- 
tion in coming to you again. ' 

It only remained for the English ambassador 
to put to profit the influence thus acquired ; and 
the reconciliation that had come about between 



THE YOUNG COURT 105 

the Grand Duchess and Bestoujef seemed of 
good augury. 

11 

Bestoujef had triumphed successively over all 
his enemies, but these victories, in which he had 
put forth all his strength, had exhausted him. 
He was growing old, and he felt less and less 
able to cope with the incessant attacks of rival 
ambitions, of old grudges, of old thirsts for 
revenge. Elizabeth herself did not forgive him 
for having, in some sort, imposed himself upon 
her. She began to treat him with coldness. 
She began also to suffer from attacks of apoplexy, 
and that gave the chancellor food for reflection. 
The Grand Duke, the Emperor of to-morrow, 
showed him the same discouraging aspect which 
had daunted Williams. Not that he imagined 
it would be very difficult to get into his favour ; 
it would be easy enough, but it would lead to 
nothing, or rather, it would lead only where 
Bestoujef absolutely would not go. If Peter had 
a political idea in his narrow brain, it was his 
admiration for Frederick. He was Prussian 
from head to foot. Bestoujef was, had been, and 
meant to die, a good Austrian. There was still 
the Grand Duchess. From the year 1754 the 
idea of a direct understanding with her seems to 
have been in the chancellors mind. 

The progress of this evolution was rapid. 
Catherine soon saw a considerable change, and 
one entirely to her advantage, in the organisation 
of the staff charged with the service and the 
surveillance of her person. Her head chamber- 
maid, la Vladislav ova, a sort of feminine Cer- 

8 



106 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

berus, became all at once as meek as a lamb, 
after a confidential interview with the chancellor. 
Not long- after, Bestoujef made his peace with 
the Princess of Zerbst, and offered himself, most 
unexpectedly, as intermediary in the correspond- 
ence which she continued to keep up with her 
daughter, and which he had himself done his 
best to put down. Finally, he ventured upon a 
heroic effort : by means of Poniatowski a docu- 
ment of capital importance was submitted to 
Catherine on the part of the chancellor. This 
time Bestoujef had burned his boats, and indeed 
risked his head ; but he opened out before the 
sad companion of Peter a new horizon, enough to 
dazzle her and to tempt her growing ambition ; 
he opened to her, in some sort, the way by 
which she was to arrive at the conquest of the 
empire : it was a project to settle the succession 
to the throne. It suggested that, immediately 
after the death of Elizabeth, Peter should be pro- 
claimed Emperor, but conjointly with Catherine, 
who should become co-partner in all his rights 
and all his authority. It need not be said that 
Bestoujef did not forget himself. He reserved 
to himself nearly all the power, leaving to 
Catherine and her husband only what his position 
as a subject did not allow him to take. Catherine 
showed on this occasion the tact of which she 
had already given proof. She was far from 
discouraging the project, but she made her 
reserves. She did not believe, she said, in the 
possibility of its execution. Perhaps the old fox 
did not believe it any more himself. He went 
over the scheme again, turned it about, made 
additions and alterations, submitted it again to 



THE YOUNG COURT 



107 



the interested party, then made fresh corrections, 
and appeared absorbed in the task. There was 
sharp practice on both sides ; but the ice was 
broken, and there were other points on which it 
was easy to agree. 

Thus was Catherine urged, from two sides at 
once, to come out of the reserve — a forced reserve, 
certainly — in which she had hitherto been kept. 
She was by no means disinclined. All her tastes 
and instincts urged her forward. Held back for 
a time by a sentiment of prudence which was 
only too well justified, she ventured timidly at 
first, then more and more boldly, till finally she 
brought herself within a hair's-breadth of ruin. 
It is but just to add that neither Bestoujef nor 
Williams, the allies of to-day, the adversaries of 
to-morrow, showed any sort of discretion, first by 
joining to spread abroad the growing fame of the 
Grand Duchess, their common work, then in 
quarrelling over her when events had set them at 
variance. Bestoujef staked his whole hand, and 
endeavoured to increase his stake as best he 
could. As for Williams, he showed himself per- 
fectly reckless. The Englishman joined to a 
certain practical ability, and a very clear sense of 
things, an extraordinary dose of imagination and 
a strange capacity for making blunders. He had 
the most chimerical ideas in his head ; he arranged 
things his own way, and whenever chance or 
providence disposed them otherwise, he refused 
to accept his defeat. He was a very Gascon of 
England. When, in August 1755, he had 
secured the renewal of the treaty of subsidies 
between England and Russia, he chanted vic- 
tory. He had gained-over Bestoujef, conquered 



io8 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Elizabeth, and beguiled Catherine through the 
medium of Poniatowski. He already saw a 
hundred thousand Russians in the field, putting 
to flight the enemies of his Britannic Majesty. 
These enemies were of course France and Prussia. 
Suddenly he learnt that the Treaty of West- 
minster had been concluded (January 5, 1756) 
and Prussia was now an English ally. Williams 
was nothing daunted. The hundred thousand 
Russians would now have only one enemy to 
fight instead of two. They would triumph on the 
banks of the Rhine instead of conquering on the 
banks of the Spree. They would merely have to 
march a little further. Meanwhile the adven- 
turous diplomatist put himself at the disposal of 
Frederick. Frederick had had no envoy at St. 
Petersburg since 1750; Williams took upon 
himself to supply the place. By means of 
his colleague at Berlin he set on foot an active 
exchange of correspondence, intended to keep 
his Prussian Majesty au courant with what 
happened in Russia. Elizabeth, on hearing the 
news of the Anglo-Prussian Treaty, at first 
refused to ratify her own treaty of subsidies with 
England ; then, on signing the ratification, 
February 26, 1756, she added a clause which 
limited it to the single event of England being 
attacked by Prussia. This was simply to annihi- 
late the treaty, and to make game of both Prussia 
and England. Williams did not give way even 
yet. Amidst all this chassd-croisi of alliances, 
this general break-up of European politics which 
seeme 1 likely to be its result, he remained faith- 
ful to his programme, which was to secure the 
co-operation of the Russian forces against the 



THE YOUNG COURT 



enemies of England. His hatred of France led 
him forward blindfold. The Treaty of Versailles, 
even (May i, 1756), did not succeed in opening 
his eyes. He did not or would not see, that, 
allied as it now was with Austria, France had 
become, with regard to Russia, not so much an 
enemy to oppose, as a natural associate in the 
new group of rival powers and interests, and a 
brother in arms in the coming conflict. It was 
just then that he wished to push forward the 
union that he had made with the young court 
and the power that he professed to wield over 
the dispositions and procedures of the Grand 
Duchess. In his infatuation he succeeded in 
making Frederick believe that Catherine had the 
power and the will to hold back the Russian 
army, at the very moment when the commands 
of Elizabeth had sent it into the field ; that at 
least she could keep it inactive. When Frederick 
was undeceived it was too late : Apraksyne had 
taken Memel, and inflicted on the Prussian army 
a sanguinary defeat at Gross-Jaegerdorf, August 
1759. But the illusion lasted two years, during 
which Williams, speaking of Catherine as his 
'dear friend,' varied at will her sentiments for 
or against the King of Prussia, boasted of the 
information, equivalent to a betrayal of the secrets 
of state, that he received from her, and ended by 
imputing to this Russian Princess the position of 
a common spy in the service of a power with 
which Russia was at war. 

What part was really played by Catherine 
during this period, one of the most troublous 
periods of her life, it is difficult to know for 
certain. Williams, most assuredly, deceived both 



I TO 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Frederick and himself. German historians are 
agreed in accusing the English cabinet of having 
retouched the despatches of the presumptuous 
ambassador, with whom the cabinet at Berlin was 
in communication. In one particular instance, 
Williams appears to have carried his infatua- 
tion to the point of inventing a measure and a 
letter of Catherine, both entirely imaginary. It 
is no less certain that the attentions of Williams 
and the homage of Poniatowski did not permit 
the Grand Duchess to remain entirely disin- 
terested in this grave crisis, or even indifferent 
to the English interests. The receipts that the 
banker Wolff continued to give on the orders of 
the English ambassador had their eloquence. 
But, on the other side, the advances of Bestoujef 
were not to be lightly regarded by Catherine ; 
now, the chancellor, whom Frederick had not 
succeeded in corrupting, insisted that the pact of 
alliance concluded with Austria should be faith- 
fully carried out. All that must have brought 
the political pupil of Montesquieu and of 
Brantome into many a hazardous and perhaps 
contradictory undertaking. 

Moreover, what she did not do, Poniatowski 
did, or seemed to do, for her ; and the Pole began 
to be very stirring. He was soon so very much 
so, that, in the allied courts of Vienna and 
Versailles, he passed for the worst enemy that 
they had at St. Petersburg, a man who must be 
got rid of at any price. The unofficial character 
of the personage seemed to render the under- 
taking easy. Vigorous attempts were made, but 
they met with an unexpected obstacle . love had 
been left out of the question. Williams himself 



THE YOUNG COURT 



in 



was more easily dislodged from a post in which 
he seemed to be doing as much or more for 
Prussia than for England itself. He left in 
October 1757. Poniatowski remained. But 
Catherine was thus brought definitely into the 
field of politics, which had been so expressly 
forbidden to her. 

We must add that her ddbut was far from 
promising. At her first trial she made use of 
her newly-acquired influence in certain personal 
interests to which she could not confess, and 
which were, in certain respects, against the in- 
terests of her adopted country as they were then 
understood by those who had their direction. 
She had entered politics on account of love ; 
love followed and kept her there. This episode 
of her life is so decisive that we must dwell 
upon it yet further. 

in 

Poniatowski had pleased Catherine because he 
spoke the language of Voltaire and also that of 
the heroes of Mile, de Scuderi. He gained the 
favour of the Grand Duke by mocking at the King 
of Poland and his minister, which was an indirect 
way of doing homage to Frederick. He made no 
further conquests at St. Petersburg. Elizabeth 
looked upon him askance, and seemed inclined to 
give way to the demand of the Court of Saxony 
that he should be recalled. By what title did he 
claim a place in the English Embassy, being 
neither an Englishman nor a diplomatist ? The 
argument was of small avail. Personages more 
enigmatical still, diplomatic agents even less 
authorised, swarmed in every court in Europe. 



U2 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

That of St. Petersburg was no exception. D'fion 
had just arrived there. Poniatowski, nevertheless, 
was obliged for the moment to obscure himself. 
Catherine let him go, being certain that he would 
come back again. He came back three months 
later, with the official title of Polish Minister. 
This was the doing of Bestoujef, who persisted in 
making himself agreeable. 

Finding the ground more solid under his feet, 
the Pole did not wait long before he began to 
concern himself in the affairs of his uncles the 
Czartoryskis, to the detriment of those of his 
master, the King of Poland ; and in those of his 
friend Williams, to the benefit of the King of 
Prussia. Frequently Catherine seconded his 
doings, adding postscripts to the letters he wrote 
to Bestoujef. Even if her intervention did not 
appear openly, it was easily to be guessed, and 
that came to the same thing. There was soon a 
new chorus of complaints on the part of the 
French and Austrian ambassadors. At one 
moment, Douglas, the aide-de-camp of the Mar- 
quis de l'Hopital, fancied the way was open 
to a good understanding with the young court 
and with Poniatowski himself. After some in- 
decision and a certain amount of resistance, the 
Marquis de l'Hopital came over to his way of 
thinking, and abandoned his opposition to the 
presence of the Polish diplomatist in the capital 
of the North. But at this very moment a violent 
quarrel broke out between the representative of 
French interests at St. Petersburg and its repre- 
sentative at Warsaw, the Comte de Broglie. The 
latter clamoured with might and main for the 
recall of Poniatowski. Alas ! it was the French 



THE YOUNG COURT 113 

interests themselves, the influence of France in 
the East, that were to founder in the conflict of 
irreconcilable ideas and principles. 

In September 1757 Douglas paid a visit to 
Warsaw, and in a series of conferences with the 
Comte de Broglie did his best to convince him of 
the necessity of a radical change of front in regard 
to the defence of the French interests in the east 
of Europe. In his eyes the Treaty of Versailles, 
which had brought France into the system of 
alliances which included Russia and Austria, 
would have as its consequence the rupture of the 
old alliances of the King, both with the Porte 
and with Poland, The gain of a powerful ally at 
St. Petersburg would make up for the loss of 
influence at Warsaw and at Constantinople. 
There was the problem, and it was this view of 
things that had convinced both Douglas and the 
Marquis de 1'Hopital of the possibility of dis- 
arming the hostility of the young court, and even 
of obtaining the support of Poniatowski. From 
the moment they declared frankly and entirely 
for Russia, the nephew of the Czartoryskis, 
occupied in the advancement at St. Petersburg of 
the Russophilist programme of his uncles, would 
become their natural ally. 

But the Comte de Broglie was by no means 
disposed to adopt these views. As for those who 
had to fix his line of conduct in tjiis respect, they 
were simply precluded from having, on this as on 
many other points, any clear and definite view at 
all. Those who presided in France at the direc- 
tion of foreign affairs, and by this we mean not 
only the anonymous directors of the private 
politics of Louis XV., the holders of the 'royal 



i U CA THERINE II OF R US SI A 

secret,' but also the official ministers, Rouille, the 
Abbe de Bernis, or Choiseul, pretended on the 
contrary, though in an uncertain measure, to 
reconcile the most irreconcilable things, the 
change of system with the immutability of 
principles, the co-operation of the Russian army 
against a common enemy, with the retention of the 
old clientele, whether Turkish, Polish, or Swedish, 
an advance towards an obscurely-realised future 
with fidelity to the past. If there was a divergence 
of opinion in this respect between the two powers 
of direction, between the ministerial cabinet and 
the mysterious laboratory wherein were elaborated 
these often contradictory despatches, it was merely 
a question of limit and degree. Doubtless, while 
on one side they insisted on seeing in Russia 
only the barbarous element, with which no under- * 
standing was possible, which was merely to be 
driven back into Asia, on the other they were 
inclined to look for an ally in the formidable 
empire created by Peter the Great, an ally, if not 
too desirable, at all events possible, and perhaps 
necessary in the more or less distant future ; a 
power, in any case, which had to be reckoned 
with, and to which it was well to make some 
concessions, even on the banks of the Vistula. 
But both parties were agreed in limiting these 
concessions. More than a century was destined 
to elapse before a series of cruel deceptions, of 
sterile efforts, of disasters shared, alas ! by those 
unhappy dependants who were not to be sacrificed, 
and who were, after all, sacrificed to a common 
illusion, had at last proved the essential mistake 
of such a conception of things and of such a 
scheme. Meanwhile they persisted in the 



THE YOUNG COURT 



"5 



extraordinary resolution of defending Po^s, 
Turks, and Swiss against the Russians, while at 
the same time in alliance with Russia. As for the 
Comte de Broglie, he had come, after his long 
residence in Poland, to identify himself with the 
Polish party, we might almost say to confound 
the interests of France, not even only with those 
of Poland, but with those of one of the parties 
among which the republic was divided ; and 
this party was precisely the one opposed to the 
Russian interests and to the powerful Czartoryski 
family, which would advance those interests and 
their own with them. 

The result of all this was, that the ambassador 
of the King at Warsaw received in October orders 
at once official and secret to press for the recall 
of Count Poniatowski, which he did with all 
ardour. In November the thing was done. 
Brtihl had given way. * The blow has been 
struck,' wrote the Marquis de l'Hopital to the 
Abbe de Bernis ; 'it must now be followed up.' 
But he added that the matter had been done 
much too brusquely. * The consequence will be,' 
he said, 4 a lively resentment against me on the 
part of the chancellor Bestoujef, and a bitter 
grudge on the part of the Grand Duke and 
Duchess. ... I cannot help letting you know 
that, in my opinion, M. le Comte de Broglie has 
put into all this much too great a heat and passion. 
He has made it a point of honour towards his 
party to inflict this mortification on the Ponia- 
towskis and the Czartoryskis. In short, it is his 
impegno! In general, l'Hopital found that the 
Comte de Broglie, ' accustomed to take the lead,' 
took somewhat too lofty a tone with his colleague, 



1 1 6 CA THERINE II OF R US SI A 

and acted in regard to him more as if he were 
Minister of Foreign Affairs than Ambassador. 
This authoritative diplomatist also permitted 
himself to indulge in certain pleasantries that 
seemed to his colleague out of place. He had 
written to d'Eon : 'You will perhaps be surprised 
at the recall of M. Poniatowski ; send him back 
to me quickly ; I have an inexpressible desire to 
see him again, and pay him my compliments on 
the success of his negotiations/ 

But Poniatowski did not leave. First of all he 
pretended to be ill, thus putting off his leave of 
absence from week to week and from month to 
month. And meanwhile an event happened 
which changed the whole situation of affairs and 
the very position of the foes on the European 
battle-field. France, which before had taken the 
tone, if not of a master, at least of one who must 
be respectfully listened to, at St. Petersburg as 
at Warsaw, had soon to lower its demands. This 
event was Rosbach (Nov. 5, 1757). 

There was no more question for the cabinet 
of Versailles of imposing its will. The Grand 
Duchess made her own more emphatically felt by 
the chancellor Bestoujef. The latter reminded 
her of the orders of the Prime Minister of 
Poland, recalling Poniatowski, now put on half- 
pay. ' The Prime Minister of Poland would go 
without his bread to please you,' replied Catherine 
drily. Bestoujef pointed out the necessity of 
looking after his own position. 1 No one will 
molest you if you do what I wish you to do.' 
One sees that with the lofty idea of the power 
of Russia, gained at the cost of the present 
eclipse of France, a not less lofty idea of her 



THE YOUNG COURT 



ii7 



own importance had taken hold of the future 
Empress. This was another consequence of 
Rosbach. 

And the event justified both suppositions. 
Briihl, the Saxon Minister, did indeed go without 
his bread to please the chancellor of all the 
Russias ; Poniatowski received the order to re- 
main at his post, and things returned to their 
former courses. As for the Marquis de l'Hopital, 
he gave up, once for all, his attempts to accom- 
modate himself to a state of things in which he 

<_> 

had ceased to have the least weight. He ceased 
to try to put back the current, and ' let things 
drift.' He did not even seek to enter into 
relations with the young court, where he saw ' a 
little stormy sea,' full of reefs. 

It was Poniatowski himself who, six months 
later, gave the Comte de Broglie the satisfaction 
that he had no doubt lost all hope of obtaining. 
To render himself impossible at St. Petersburg, 
after all he had done there, did not seem an easy 
thing for him. He succeeded however in doing 
so. The story has been differently told ; we shall 
follow the narrative of the principal actor in it, 
which is confirmed, almost throughout, by the 
testimony of the Marquis de l'Hopital. 

The Grand Duke had not yet said his say in 
regard to the presence of the Polish diplomatist 
in Russia, and the relations he had established 
there. It is true that he was absorbed by a new 
passion: Elizabeth Vorontsof, the last of his 
mistresses, had just entered upon the scene. An 
interference on his part, however, remained a 
quite possible, if not probable, eventuality. It 
came in July 1758. Issuing from the chateau of 



MS CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Oranienbaum in the early morning, Poniatowski 
was arrested by one of the pickets of cavalry that 
Peter planted round his house as in time of war. 
He was in disguise. He was roughly seized and 
hauled before the Grand Duke. Peter insisted 
on knowing the truth, which in itself did not seem 
in the least to trouble him. 6 It could all be 
arranged,' he said, as long as he was taken into 
confidence. The silence which the prisoner felt 
bound to keep exasperated him. He concluded 
that this nocturnal visit had been meant for him, 
and he pretended to believe that his life was in 
danger. Had it not been for the presence of 
mind of a compatriot, recently arrived in St. 
Petersburg in the suite of Prince Charles of 
Saxony, Poniatowski might have paid dearly for 
his imprudence. But the Grand Duke, none the 
less, talked for some days of what he would do to 
this stranger who had tried to elude the vigilance 
of his outposts. Catherine was so alarmed that 
she resigned herself to a great sacrifice : Elizabeth 
Vorontsof received from her the most unhoped- 
for advances and civilities. Poniatowski, on his 
part, made his supplications to the favourite. ' It 
would be so easy for you to render everybody 
happy, ' he whispered in her ear, at one of the 
court receptions. 

Elizabeth Vorontsof desired nothing better. 
The same day, after a talk with the Grand Duke, 
she suddenly introduced Poniatowski into his 
Highness's apartment. 'What a fool you have 
been,' cried Peter, 4 not to have taken me into 
your confidence before ! * 

And he explained laughingly that he had not 
the least wish to be jealous ; the precautions taken 



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119 



round Oranienbaum were merely for his personal 
safety. On this Poniatowski, not forgetting to 
be diplomatic, broke out into compliments on his 
Highness's military arrangements, whose per- 
fection he had found out to his expense. The 
good humour of the Grand Duke increased. 
; Since we are all good friends,' said he, ' there is 
one wanting.' 

'And with that,' relates Poniatowski in his 
memoirs, ' he goes into his wife's room, pulls her 
out of bed, without leaving her time to put on her 
stockings or shoes, and without so much as a 
petticoat, brings her in to us, and says, pointing 
to me, ' ' Well, here he is, and I hope you will be 
satisfied." ' 

They supped gaily together, and the party did 
not break up till four o'clock in the morning. 
Elizabeth Vorontsof was obliging enough to make 
a personal explanation to Bestoujef, in order to 
convince him that the presence of Poniatowski at 
St. Petersburg had ceased to be displeasing to the 
Grand Duke. Festivities were recommenced 
next day, and for some weeks this astonishing 
manage a quatre had the best of times together. 

' I often went to Oranienbaum,' writes Ponia- 
towski ; ' I got there in the evening, mounted by 
a secret staircase to the Grand Duchess's apart- 
ments, where I found the Grand Duke and his 
mistress ; we supped together ; after which the 
Grand Duke departed with his mistress, saying to 
us, " Now, my children, you don't require me any 
longer." And I stayed as long as I liked.' 

Rumours of the adventure, however, began to 
circulate at court, and, lenient as every one was 
in matters of this kind, it made a scandal. The 



120 



CATHERIXE II. OF RUSSIA 



Marquis de l'Hopital thought it his duty to profit 
by it in order to renew his demands for the dis- 
missal of Poniatowski. This time he succeeded. 
Poniatowski was obliged to go. Elizabeth saw 
that the reputation of her nephew and heir 
was at stake. Two years later the Baron de 
Breteuil was charged to do all he could to wipe 
out the impression caused on Catherine by this 
painful event. He only half succeeded. It is 
true that, uniting as he did the position of official 
representative of French politics with that of 
secret agent, he had a double part to play, and, 
while assuring the Grand Duchess 'that his Most 
Christian Majesty not only would make no oppo- 
sition to the return of Count Poniatowski to 
St. Petersburg, but that he was even disposed to 
lend himself to the measures that were being 
taken to induce the King of Poland to take up 
his cause,' he was obliged also, 4 without open 
offence to the Grand Duchess, to avoid granting 
her wishes.' 

The extravagant dualism which had resulted 
in France from the fantasy of the sovereign in 
conflict with the serious duties of sovereignty, 
came out very eloquently in this comedy. Cathe- 
rine was not duped by it. Having with some 
difficulty obtained a private interview with the 
Grand Duchess, Breteuil had to listen to some 
flattering speeches. 1 1 have been brought up to 
love the French,' said she, ' I have long had a 
preference for them ; it is a sentiment that your 
services bring back to me.' ' I wish,' wrote the 
Baron after this interview, 1 that I could render 
the fire, the dexterity, and the effrontery that 
Madame la Grande Duchesse put into this conver- 



THE YOUNG COURT 



121 



sation.' But he added sadly : ' All that means, 
perhaps, and will continue to mean, nothing but 
the excess of her thwarted passion.' 

He judged truly. Poniatowski was to return 
to St. Petersburg no more — until, indeed, thirty- 
five years later, a dethroned king. Soon, ab- 
sorbed by other preoccupations, distracted too by 
other amours, Catherine herself lost interest in 
the success of her own and others' tentatives in 
this direction. But the leaven of spite against 
France remained in her heart. The more, as 
she did not, in giving up hope of seeing her 
Pole again, give up thinking of him. Fidelity, 
at least a certain fidelity, odd enough at times, 
it must be admitted, was a part of her character. 
As she had associated politics with love, she 
had to keep her love-affairs in line with her other 
affairs. Now she could sometimes — not always 
— be consistent in the latter. It is thus that, in 
all her changes of lovers, she continued to love 
some of them, even beyond the passing infatua- 
tion of the heart and senses. She loved them in 
another way, more calm, but as definite, if not 
more so, tranquilly, ' imperturbably,' as the 
Prince de Ligne was to say. There was a 
certain effrontery also, and even a little cynicism, 
in the edict that she addressed in 1763 to her 
ambassador at Warsaw, recommending the can- 
didature of the future King of Poland, and 
stating that he ' had rendered, during his resi- 
dence at St. Petersburg, more services to his 
country than any other minister of the republic' 
But there was tenderness as well as a wise fore- 
thought in the measures that she took at the 
same epoch, in order to pay all the debts of this 
9 



122 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



singular candidate. In 1764 the supposition 
of a marriage which would commingle the two 
empires having taken general hold of peoples 
minds, Catherine had recourse to an ingenious 
expedient to reassure her excitable neighbours. 
She wrote to Obrescof, her ambassador at Con- 
stantinople, that he was to communicate to the 
Porte the news of imaginary parleyings under- 
taken by Poniatowski in view of an alliance with 
one of the first families of Poland. And, her 
heart being now disinterested in regard to a 
romance thus followed up across time and space, 
without her mind and her ambition having lost 
interest in it, she gave simultaneous orders to 
Count Kaiserling and Prince Repnine, her repre- 
sentatives in Poland ; so that, after his election, 
Poniatowski really did marry a Pole, or at least 
intended to. It was a measure designed to calm 
the disquietude of the Porte, perhaps also to 
raise an insuperable barrier between past and 
present. Alas ! a near future was to remove 
from her this care, leaving, in place of the 
obstacle she had wished for, a bottomless gulf. 
This is how Poniatowski, after he had become 
King of Poland, wrote, two years later, to his 
representative at the court of St. Petersburg, 
Count Rzewuski : — - 

' The last orders given to Repnine to intro- 
duce dissension even in the legislation have 
come like a very thunderbolt upon the country 
and myself. If it is still possible, make the 
Empress see that the Crown she has given me 
will become a very Nessus' shirt for me, to burn 
and bring me to a fearful end/ 

The lover of former days was now, for Cathe- 



THE YOUNG COURT 



123 



rine, merely the executant of her supreme will 
in a half-conquered country. She replied by a 
letter in which she ordered this improvised king, 
the fragile work of her hands, to let Repnine 
have his way ; if not, * there will only remain to 
the Empress the continual regret of having been 
so much deceived in the friendship, the way of 
thinking, and the sentiments, of the King.' 
Poniatowski insisting still, she sent him this last 
and sinister warning, which already foretells the 
brutal measures of the Salderns, Drevitchs, and 
Souvarofs, the future stranglers of the last 
national resistances : ' All that now remains for 
me is to leave this matter to its fate. ... I close 
my eyes on the consequences, flattered neverthe- 
less that your Majesty should believe me so far 
disinterested, in all I have done for yourself and 
for the nation, as not to reproach me with having 
set up in Poland a target for my arms. They 
shall never be directed against those . . . ' 
Here the pen of the Empress paused ; she had 
written, ' Those I love ' ; she erased the words 
and substituted * those to whom I wish well ' ; 
then she ended with this phrase, which betrays 
all her thoughts, and which must have sounded 
in the unhappy Poniatowski's ears like the roll of 
drums before the fire of the squadron : ' As I 
shall not withhold them when it seems to me 
that their use may be useful/ 

We shall not have to refer again, other than 
cursorily, to this liaison, destined to such sin- 
gular and tragic reversion. It held, indeed, a 
less important place in the life of Catherine than 
in that of the unfortunate people called to play 
the part of expiatory victim. After having 



124 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

risked her reputation, which she was no longer 
afraid of compromising, and her credit, which she 
knew so well how to keep intact, Catherine 
finally gained an enormous profit therefrom. 
We might say that Poland died of it, if nations 
had not more profound reasons for living and 
dying. We must now return to the period in 
which the heyday of this love affair was about 
to end, and to this strange interior, outwardly so 
like a prison, a guard-house, and a villa, which 
screened, indiscreetly enough, so many mysteries. 

IV 

In her connections, political with Williams and 
Bestoujef, amatory and political with Ponia- 
towski, Catherine is no longer the recluse of the 
past, watched by officers of the court in the guise 
of spies, ill-treated by her husband, terrorised 
over by Elizabeth. The chancellors agents 
have been mastered one by one, and finally he 
himself has undergone the same fate. Peter 
remains the same gross, extravagant, and in- 
supportable being that he has always been, ' a 
strange brute, streaked with insanity/ according 
to St. Beuve's expression. He still knows how 
to render himself odious. Frequently he comes 
to bed dead drunk, and between two hiccups he 
speaks to his wife on his favourite subject, his 
amours with the Duchess of Courland, who is a 
hunchback, or with Freiline Vorontsof, who is 
marked with small-pox. If Catherine pretends 
to go to sleep, he pummels her with hands and 
feet to keep her awake until sleep takes hold of 
himself. He is almost always drunk, and he 



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125 



becomes more and more mad. In 1758 Cathe- 
rine gives birth to a daughter, the Czarevna 
Anna, of whom Poniatowski is supposed to be 
the father. At the moment when the pains 
of childbed take hold of her, at half-past two 
in the morning, Peter, informed of it, arrives, 
1 booted and spurred, in his Holstein uniform, 
a belt round his waist, and an enormous sword 
by his side.' On Catherine's inquiry as to why 
he has put on these accoutrements, he replies 
that 1 a friend in need is a friend indeed, that in 
this garb he is ready to act as duty bids him, 
that the duty of a Holstein officer is to defend 
the ducal house, according to his oath, against 
its enemies, and that, believing his wife was 
alone, he had come to her aid/ He can scarcely 
stand on his feet. He has at times, however, as 
we have seen, his agreeable moments, an occa- 
sional access of good humour or an accidental 
complaisance, which he exaggerates, in his usual 
extravagant way, but 'of which his wife has the 
benefit. It is partly that, like others, he has 
come under the charm of the Grand Duchess, 
or at least under the power of her mind and 
temperament. He is often obliged to recognise 
the wisdom of her counsels, and the accuracy of 
her views. He has become accustomed to go to 
her in all his difficulties, and little by little there 
has come into his dull brain some notion of the 
superiority that he is one day to realise so 
terribly. At the fatal moment it is this idea, 
haunting and discouraging him, which will 
paralyse his defence. 

' The Grand Duke,' writes Catherine in her 
memoirs, ' for a long time called me Madame la 



126 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Ressource, and, however vexed he might be with 
me, if ever he found himself in distress on any 
point, he came running to me at full speed, to 
have my advice, and, as soon as he had it, he 
would dash away again at full speed.' 

As for Elizabeth, worn out by an irregular life, 
haunted by terrors which will not allow her to 
sleep two nights following in the same room, and 
which have caused her to search through all her 
empire for a man sufficiently slumber-proof to 
watch all night by her bedside without dozing, 
she is now only the shadow of herself. 

' This princess,' writes the Marquis de l'Hopital, 
under date January 6th, 1759, 'has sunk into a 
singular state of superstition. She remains whole 
hours before an image for which she has great 
devotion ; she talks to it, consults it ; she comes 
to the opera at eleven, sups at one, and goes to 
bed at five. Count Chouvalof is the man in 
favour. His family have taken possession of the 
Empress ; and affairs go as God wills/ 

This new favourite, Ivan Chouvalof, does not 
fear to awaken the jealousy and the anger of 
the Empress by paying, under her very eyes, 
assiduous court to the Grand Duchess, who is now 
the observed of all. He covets 'the double post,' 
declares the Baron de Breteuil, ' dangerous as it 
is.' From the year 1757 the Marquis de l'Hopital 
is alarmed and scandalised to see the young court 
(and the young court, politically speaking, is 
Catherine) 'break a lance openly with the Em- 
press, establish a sort of counter-cabal.' ' They 
say,' he observes, 'that the Empress has given 
up objecting to anything, and leaves them free 
course.' About the same time, in a conversation 



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127 



in which all the foreign ministers take part, the 
Grand Duchess, speaking to the ambassador of 
the King in reference to her love of riding, cries : 
* There is not a bolder woman than I ; I am 
perfectly reckless.' D'Eon, who saw her then, 
thus depicts her : — 

' The Grand Duchess is romantic, ardent, pas- 
sionate ; her eyes are brilliant, their look fasci- 
nating, glassy, like those of a wild beast. Her 
brow is high, and, if I mistake not, there is a 
long and awful future written on that brow. 
She is kind and affable, but, when she comes 
near me, I draw back with a movement which I 
cannot control. She frightens me.' 

She frightens, indeed, and fascinates a wider 
and wider circle, making of these persons the 
slaves of her will, of her ambition, of her passions, 
now from day to day more ardent. Nor is it 
only in the domain of politics that she begins to 
.find elbow-room, and if, in one respect, the young 
court resembles a stormy sea, as the Marquis de 
1'Hopital would have it, the Baron de Breteuil 
sees in it, no doubt, a certain resemblance with 
the Pare aux Cerfs. Licence is everywhere the 
order of the day, during these last years of the 
reign of Elizabeth. In March 1755 the Saxon 
Minister, Funcke, gives an account of the repre- 
sentation at the Imperial Theatre of a Russian 
opera, Cephale and Procris. Elizabeth is present, 
the Grand Duke, and all the court ; and it is 
simply the court, with all its depravities, which is 
put on the stage, in a series of tableaux so revolt- 
ing that the good Funcke is obliged to draw a 
veil over them. To this same year belongs the 
following episode (told in Catherine's memoirs), 



128 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



which opens a new chapter in the history of 
her private life, that of nocturnal rambles, which 
render entirely illusory the pretence of surveil- 
lance still exercised over her. In the course of 
the winter, Lev Narychkine, who, faithful to his 
buffooning instincts, is accustomed to mew like a 
cat at the Grand Duchess's door, to announce his 
presence, makes the familiar signal one evening, 
just as Catherine is on the point of going to bed. 
He is admitted, and proposes to go and see the 
wife of his elder brother, Anna Nikitichna, who 
is ill. ' When ? ' ' To-night.' ' You are mad ! ' 
1 1 am quite collected ; nothing is easier.' And 
he explains his project, and the precaution to be 
taken. They will pass through the Grand 
Duke's apartments; he will never notice them, 
as he will certainly be at table with some jolly 
boon-companions, if he is not already under the 
table. There is not the least risk. He puts 
it so convincingly that Catherine hesitates no 
longer. She has herself undressed and put to 
bed by la Vladislavova, while at the same time 
she gives orders to a Calmuck whom she has 
always at hand, and whom she has trained to a 
blind obedience, to procure for her a suit of men's 
clothes. As soon as la Vladislavova has gone, 
she gets up, and goes off with Lev Narychkine. 
They arrive without difficulty at Anna Nikit- 
ichna's, whom they find in good health and in 
gay company. They have a delightful time, and 
all promise to meet again. They soon do, and 
Poniatowski, naturally, is of the company. Some- 
times they return on foot through the most ill- 
famed streets of St. Petersburg. Then, when 
the winter has become too severe, they find 



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129 



means to renew their pleasures without exposing 
the Grand Duchess to the inclement nights, 
and the jolly party ends by transporting itself 
to the Empress's bedroom, always through the 
apartments of the Grand Duke, who suspects 
nothing. 

After her second confinement, the nights not 
being enough for her, Catherine arranges to 
receive during the day whenever, whoever, and 
in what manner soever she pleases. Of late she 
has suffered somewhat from the cold ; she there- 
upon seizes the pretext for arranging by her bed- 
side, by means of an assemblage of screens, a 
sort of little retreat, where she will be properly 
screened from the draught. Here she gives 
frequent hospitality to select visitors, such as 
Lev Narychkine or Count Poniatowski. The 
latter comes and goes in a great blond wig, which 
renders him unrecognisable, and if on the way 
he is stopped with ' Who goes there ? ' he 
answers, ' The Grand Duke's musician.' .The 
Cabinet,' due to the inventive spirit of Catherine, 
is so ingeniously constructed that she is able, 
without quitting her bed, to put herself into com- 
munication with those who are there, or, by 
drawing one of the curtains of the bed, to hide 
them entirely from view. One day, while the 
two Narychkines, Poniatowski, and some others 
are hidden behind this protecting curtain, she 
receives Count Chouvalof, who comes to see her 
on behalf of the Empress, and who leaves her 
without the least suspicion that she was not 
alone. When Chouvalof has gone, Catherine 
declares that she is terribly hungry, orders six 
dishes, and, sending away the servants, she has 



130 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

supper with her friends. Then she draws the 
curtain again, and, summoning the servants to 
take away the plates, she amuses herself with 
their astonishment at the sight of this extra- 
ordinary voracity. 

Doubtless her maids of honour are well aware 
of what is going on. But they have other things 
to do than to be concerned about it. They have 
their own daily and nightly visitors. To reach 
their rooms, it is true, they have to pass through 
that of their gouvernante, Mme. Schmidt, or 
that of the Princess of Courland, honorary 
directress of the establishment. But Mme. 
Schmidt, ill nearly every night with the in- 
digestion that she has given herself during the 
day, generally leaves the coast clear. As for the 
Princess of Courland, she has a weakness herself 
for a good-looking man. The Grand Duke's rela- 
tions with her we have already seen. Neverthe- 
less, on the news that his wife is again enceinte, 
Peter has a momentary fit of ill humour. He 
does not remember being responsible for it. 
'God knows where she gets them,' he grumbles 
one day before the whole table ; ' I don't at all 
know that the child is mine, and yet I shall have 
to take the responsibility.' Lev Narychkine, who 
is present, hastens to report the remark to 
Catherine. She is not at all concerned. * You 
are children,' she says, shrugging her shoulders. 
' Go and find him, speak sharply to him, and 
make him swear that he has not slept with his 
wife for four months. After that, declare that 
you will report the fact to Count Alexander 
Chouvalof, the Grand Inquisitor of the Empire.' 
She thus calls the head of the terrible 'secret 



THE YOUNG COURT 



chancellorship,' which in our days has been re- 
placed by the famous third section. Lev Narych- 
kine faithfully executes her commission. * Go to 
the devil ! ' replies the Grand Duke, whose mind 
is not quite easy on the subject. 

But, despite the assurance that she has shown 
on this occasion, the incident gives some uneasi- 
ness to Catherine. She sees in it a warning, and 
a commencement of hostilities in the decisive 
struggle for which she has for some time been 
preparing. She accepts the challenge. It is 
from this moment, if we may believe her, that she 
forms the resolution to 'follow an independent 
line,' and we know where these simple words will 
lead her. The last agony of Peter III. in the 
sinister house of Ropcha comes at the end of 
the way she has chosen. But it is at this same 
moment that she stands face to face with the 
crisis which in some hours and for some months 
threatens her with the ruin of all her hopes and 
all her ambitions. 

v 

On February 26th (14th, Russian style), 1758, 
the chancellor Bestoujef was arrested. At 
the same time field-marshal Apraksyne, com- 
mandant of the army sent into Prussia against 
Frederick, was removed from command and 
brought to trial. These two events, though 
they had not really a cause in common, seemed, 
in the eyes of the public, to hang together. We 
know what had taken place in the course of the 
last campaign. The capture of Memel and the 
victory of Gross-Jaegersdorf, achieved by Aprak- 



132 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

syne in August 1757, had transported with joy 
the allies of Russia, and awakened in their minds 
the liveliest hopes. Already they saw Frederick 
lost and at bay, begging for mercy. Suddenly, 
instead of pushing forward and profiting by its 
advantages, the victorious army abandoned its 
position and beat a retreat so precipitately that 
one would have thought the roles to be reversed, 
and the Prussian troops, instead of having re- 
ceived a bloody defeat, to have won another 
triumph. A great cry of indignation arose in 
the camp of Frederick's enemies. Evidently 
Apraksyne had betrayed them. But why ? It was 
known that he was an intimate friend of Bestoujef. 
It was known, too, that the Grand Duchess 
had written to him several times by the means 
and at the suggestion of the chancellor. That 
was quite enough. Evidently the field-marshal 
had carried out a plan concocted by the friends, 
new or old, of Prussia and England. Bestoujef, 
bought by Frederick, had won over Catherine, 
whose relations with Williams and Poniatowski 
rendered her only too likely to be so influenced, 
and between them both they had induced the 
victorious general to sacrifice his own glory, 
the interests of the common cause, and the 
honour of his flag. France especially was con- 
vinced of this. The Comte de Stainville, am- 
bassador of the King at Vienna, was instructed 
to propose a common application to Elizabeth 
for the dismissal of Bestoujef. Kaunitz reflected, 
and finally declined the proposition. He had, 
meanwhile, received information from St. Peters- 
burg which cleared Bestoujef and Catherine. 
The representative of the court of Vienna at 



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*33 



St. Petersburg, Esterhazy, did not believe them 
culpable. The Marquis de l'Hopital was alone 
in supporting the accusation. He supported it 
to the very end. During the inquiry against the 
ex-chancellor, he wrote : — 

1 This first minister had found means to win over 
the Grand Duke and Duchess to use their influence 
with Apraksyne to hinder him from acting as 
vigorously and promptly as the Empress ordered 
him to do. These plots were made under her 
Majesty's very eyes ; but as her health was then 
very uncertain, she was entirely taken up with it, 
whilst the whole court was at the disposition 
of the Grand Duke, and especially the Grand 
Duchess, who was gained over by the chevalier 
Williams and by English money, with which this 
ambassador supplied her by means of her jeweller 
Bernardi, who has confessed all. The Grand 
Duchess had the indiscretion, not to say temerity, 
to write a letter to General Apraksyne, in which 
she dispensed him from the oath that he had 
made to her not to bring the army into the field, 
and giving him permission to put it in action, 
M. de Bestoujef, having one day shown this 
letter to M. de Bucow, lieutenant-general of the 
Empress, who had come to St. Petersburg to push 
forward the operations of the Russian army, this 
officer immediately informed M. de Vorontsof, 
the chamberlain Schwalof, and M. le Comte 
Esterhazy. This was the first step in M. de 
Bestoujef s ruin.' 

It is almost certain that if the conduct of the 
chancellor, as well as that of Catherine, appeared 
somewhat dubious in regard to this circumstance, 
they had neither of them any hand in the retreat 



134 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



of Apraksyne's army. Catherine took some 
trouble to clear her conduct and that of her sup- 
posed accomplice from all suspicion, and she did 
so at a time when she need not have minded 
confessing the truth. The movements of the 
Russian army after the victory of Gross-Jaegers- 
dorf were made in consequence of three councils 
of war, held on the 27th August and the 13th and 
28th September. General Fermor, who suc- 
ceeded Apraksyne in command, had been present 
at these councils, and had voted for the retreat. 
The army was dying of hunger, and Apraksyne 
had foreseen that it would be so. The partisans 
of the Austrian alliance had urged it forward 
without thinking of providing it with food. 
Those about Elizabeth, too, had cried, heed- 
lessly enough, 'A Berlin! a Berlin!' But it 
was thought well to give satisfaction to the 
clamours of the Austro- French party by sacri- 
ficing the marshal. As for Bestoujef, his ruin 
had long been decided on, and the disgrace of 
Apraksyne was but a pretext to hasten his. 
The chancellor's enemies had got scent of his 
project for eventually associating Catherine with 
the government of the empire. They insinuated 
to Elizabeth that among the ministers papers 
would be found some endangering the safety 
of her crown. That decided her. 

Imagine the terror of Catherine on learning of 
this formidable event ! Would she not seem to 
be the accomplice of the minister who had come 
to his downfall on an accusation of a definite 
state crime? Her letters to Apraksyne were 
nothing. But the great project which had been 
formed on her behalf,— what a menace seemed 



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135 



to be suspended above her head ! The prison, 
torture perhaps ; and afterwards, what sort of 
disgrace ? the convent ? dismissal to Germany ? 
who knows, perhaps Siberia ? A cold shiver ran 
through her veins. This is what all her dreams 
were to end in ! 

But she soon took heart again. At this tragic 
moment we see her rise to the occasion, strong 
and resolute, calm and full of resources ; just as 
a near future was to show her, when, having done 
violence to fortune and snatched the supreme 
power, she was to weave out of the bloody vest- 
ments of Peter III. the most magnificent imperial 
mantle that woman has ever borne. Her edu- 
cation is done ; she is now in full possession of 
all her gifts, natural and acquired, of one of the 
most marvellous intellectual and physical organi- 
sations that have ever been made for combat, 
for the conduct of affairs, and for the government 
of men and things. She has not a moments 
hesitation. She faces the danger resolutely. 
The day after the chancellor's arrest there is 
a state ball, in honour of the marriage of Lev 
Narychkine. Catherine appears at the ball. 
She is smiling and unaffectedly gay. The 
charge of the trial which is on foot has been 
confided to three high dignitaries of the empire, 
Count Chouvalof, Count Boutourline, and Prince 
Troubetzkoi. Catherine goes up to the last- 
named. * What are these tine affairs that I have 
heard of? ' says she playfully. ' Have you found 
more crimes than criminals, or more criminals 
than crimes?' Surprised by such aplomb, Trou- 
betzkoi stammers out some excuse or other. 
He and his colleagues have done what they 



136 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

have been told to do. They have interrogated 
the supposed criminals. As for the crimes, they 
have yet to be found. Somewhat reassured, 
Catherine goes on to gather further information. 
' Bestoujef is arrested,' says Boutourline simply; 
' we have now to find out why.' 

So nothing has yet been discovered, and it is 
Catherine who, interrogating the two inquisitors of 
Elizabeth, and listening to their replies, has made 
a discovery. In their embarrassed air, in their 
eyes that dare not meet her own, she has divined 
the fear that she inspires already. Some hours 
later she breathes yet more freely : the Holstein 
minister Stampke has brought her a note from 
Bestoujef himself bearing these words : 1 Have 
no fear in regard to that you know of ; I have 
had time to burn all/ The old fox was not to 
be caught in the snare. Catherine can thus go 
forward without fear. The time is past when, 
counselled by Madame Kruse, one of her maids 
of honour, she had replied to the least reproach 
of the Empress, ' Vinovata matouchka (I am in 
the wrong, little mother),' which produced, it 
seems, a marvellous effect. The Marquis de 
l'Hopital, whose advice she seeks, no doubt in 
order that she may put him on the wrong scent, 
recommends her to make full confession to the 
Empress. She is far enough from doing that ! 
To begin with, she makes use of Stampke, of 
Poniatowski, her valet de chambre Chkourine, 
to keep up an active correspondence with Bes- 
toujef and the other prisoners implicated in the 
accusation against him, the jeweller Bernardi, 
the Russian master, Adadourof, and Ielaguine, 
a friend of Poniatowski. A little servant, who is 



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137 



allowed to look after the ex-chancellor, leaves and 
takes the letters from a heap of bricks used as 
a letter-box, which serves also a double purpose, 
for the love-correspondence witlt Poniatowski 
is carried on by the same means. The Pole 
gives her a rendezvous for the evening at the 
opera, and Catherine promises to be there with- 
out fail, co&te que coute, She finds it no easy 
matter to keep her word, for at the last moment 
the Grand Duke, who has made his own plans 
for the evening, and who does not wish to have 
them upset by his wife going out with her maids 
of honour, especially one of them, the Freiline 
Vorontsof, puts in an objection. He goes so 
far as to countermand the orders that the Grand 
Duchess has given, and forbids the horses to be 
put in the carriage. Catherine declares that 
she will go to the theatre if she has to go on 
foot ; but first she will write to the Empress 
to complain of the ill-treatment of the Grand 
Duke, and to ask permission to go back to her 
parents in Germany. Just this — a forced, humili- 
ating return to her native country, to a narrow 
horizon, to mediocrity, to the misery of the 
domestic hearth — is of all things what she now 
fears the most. Where, even, could she return ? 
Her father is no more ; she had mourned his 
death in 1747. She had even been hindered 
from mourning it too long; she had been told 
at the end of a week that that was enough, and 
that the 'deceased not having worn a crown, 
etiquette did not allow her a longer mourning. 
As for her mother, she herself had had to leave 
Germany, in consequence of a well-known inci- 
dent, which had brought about the occupation of 
10 



1.38 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA' 

the Duchy of Zerbst by Frederick. In August 
1757 the Abbe de Bernis had sent a special 
emissary to Zerbst, the Marquis de Fraignes, 
' with the view of inspiring, in the mind of 
Madame la Grande- Duchesse of Russia, through 
Madame la Princesse de Zerbst, her mother, the 
desired feelings.' Frederick, hearing of the 
presence in his neighbourhood of a French 
officer, ordered a detachment of his huzzars to 
capture him. Surprised in his sleep, de 
Fraignes made a spirited defence. He barri- 
caded himself in his room, shot the first Prussian 
who crossed the threshold, roused the entire 
town, and was saved, and taken to the castle. 
Frederick, who would not be thus balked, sent 
a whole corps of soldiers with cannon to besiege 
the refractory Frenchman. De Fraignes at last 
gave in. The Duchy and town of Zerbst had 
to pay the expenses of the war. The reigning 
Duke, who was now the brother of Catherine, 
sought refuge at Hamburg. The mother took 
shelter in Paris, where, though she seemed to 
have suffered for France, and to some extent 
through it, she was not welcomed. Her liking 
for intrigue and her restless spirit were feared, 
though it seemed useful, all the same, to have 
in her a sort of surety, and a powerful hold upon 
the Grand Duchess. But it is precisely this 
which alarmed people at St. Petersburg. On 
the demand of the vice-chancellor Vorontsof, 
1'Hopital had to beg that the princess should be 
sent back. The reply was, naturally, that she had 
not been asked to come, that, had it been thought 
of, she would have been detained at Brussels, 
but that she could not be turned away, now that 



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139 



she was there, without gravely offending the 
Grand Duchess, and even without doing wrong 
to France :• 'for France,' wrote de Bernis nobly, 
* has always been the refuge of unhappy princes. 
The Princess of Zerbst, who has suffered partly 
by reason of her devotion to the king, has more 
right to it than most.' 

Where then would Catherine go if she were 
to leave Russia ? To Paris ? Assuredly Eliza- 
beth would never consent to lengthen the list 
of unhappy princes domiciled in France by 
adding to it a Grand Duchess of Russia. But 
the more impossible it appeared to Catherine, 
the more she felt emboldened to beg for it. 
Elizabeth, on her side, is in no haste to respond 
to this embarrassing request. She sends word 
to the Grand Duchess that she will have a per- 
sonal explanation with her. Days and weeks 
pass. The examination of Bestoujef and his 
supposed accomplices goes on apace, and, if 
one may believe the Marquis de l'Hopital, who 
follows feverishly the course of affairs, every day 
new proofs are discovered of his culpability, with- 
out, however, the opportunity of bringing in a 
sufficiently definite act of accusation to allow of 
a trial. 

Finally Catherine carries the day by main 
force. One night the Empress's chaplain is 
awakened with the news that the Grand Duchess 
is very ill, and desires to confess herself. He 
goes, and allows himself to be convinced of the 
necessity of giving the alarm to the Czarina. 
Elizabeth is frightened, and agrees to what had 
been asked : for the sake of Catherine's health 
an interview must be granted, and she grants it. 



UO CATHERINE //. OF RUSSIA 

Of this meeting we know only what Catherine 
has told us. herself. Forty years afterwards her 
memory may well have deceived her in a few 
details, and this remark applies to the whole of 
her autobiography, from which we have, up to 
now, made numerous excerpts, and from which 
we must now, unhappily, cease to borrow ; for the 
memoirs stop at this exact point. There is no 
trace, however, of arrangement or straining after 
effect in these pages ; the narrative rises without 
preparation and without apparent effort to the 
most intensely dramatic point. One sees the 
scene of the interview : the Empress's dressing- 
room, a vast apartment bathed in semi-obscurity, 
for it is the evening. At one end, like an altar, 
the table of white marble before which the 
Empress passes long hours, seeking the fled 
dream of her former beauty, shines in the shadow, 
its heavy ewers and basins of fine gold shedding 
dull gleams. In one of these basins the sharp 
eyes of Catherine, attracted by a streak of light, 
observe a roll of paper, which the hand of the 
Empress has evidently just thrown there. It is, 
she feels sure, the incriminating papers — her 
correspondence with Bestoujef and Apraksyne. 
From behind a screen comes a stifled murmur of 
voices : she recognises them. Her husband is 
there, and also Alexander Chouvalof ; doubtless 
as witnesses. At last Elizabeth appears, frigid in 
manner, brief in speech, her eyes hard and cold. 
Catherine throws herself at her feet. Without 
giving the Empress time to commence her ex- 
amination, she renews the request she has already 
made in writing : that she may be allowed to 
return to her mother. She has tears in her voice : 



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141 



it is the sorrowful complaint of a child whom 
strangers have ill-used, and who cries to go back 
to its own people. Elizabeth is surprised, and 
somewhat embarrassed. 

'How shall I explain your departure?' she 
says. 

4 By saying that I have had the misfortune to 
offend your majesty.' 

' But how will you live ? ' 

'As I did before your Majesty deigned to 
summon me hither.' 

* But your mother has had to leave her home. 
She is at Paris, as you know.' 

' In Cruth she has called on herself the hate of 
the King of Prussia through her love for Russia.' 

The answer is triumphant. Every w T ord tells. 
The embarrassment of the Czarina increases 
visibly. She endeavours, however, to reassume 
the offensive ; she reproaches the young woman 
with her excessive pride. Once, in the Summer 
Palace, she had been obliged to ask her if she 
had a stiff neck, so difficult did she seem to find 
it to incline her head before the Empress. The 
conversation thus turns to a vulgar quarrel of 
wounded self-esteem. Catherine makes herself 
humbler and smaller than a blade of grass. She 
has no recollection of the incident that her Majesty 
would recall to her mind. Doubtless she is too 
stupid to have understood the words that her 
Majesty deigned to address to her. But her 
eyes — those wild beast's eyes of which d'Eon 
speaks — are fixed glitteringly upon the Empress. 
To avoid the look before which Troubetzkoi and 
Boutourline have trembled, Elizabeth goes to the 
other end of the room and speaks to the Grand 



142 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Duke. Catherine listens. Peter profits by the 
occasion to make accusations against his wife, 
whom he fancies already condemned. In violent 
terms he denounces her wickedness and ob- 
stinacy. Catherine flares up : ' I am wicked, I 
know,' she cries, in a ringing voice ; ' I am and I 
ever will be against those who deal unjustly with 
me. Yes, I am obstinate with you, since I have 
learnt that one gains nothing by giving way 
to your caprices ! ' 

' You see now ! ' says the Grand Duke trium- 
phantly, addressing the Empress. But the 
Empress is silent She has again met the look 
of Catherine, she has heard the ring of her voice, 
and she too is afraid. Once more she endeavours 
to intimidate the young woman. She orders her 
to avow the culpable relations that she has had 
with Bestoujef and Apraksyne ; to admit that she 
has written other letters to the latter besides those 
which have been found. On her refusal, she 
threatens to put the ex -chancellor to the torture. 
'As it pleases your Majesty,' replies Catherine 
coldly. Elizabeth is overcome. She changes 
her tone ; puts on a confidential air ; intimates to 
Catherine by a gesture that she cannot speak to 
her openly before the Grand Duke and Chouvalof. 
Catherine is prompt to seize the indication. 
Lowering her voice, she says, in a humble 
murmur, that she longs to open all her heart and 
mind to the Empress. Elizabeth is touched, 
and sheds a few tears. Catherine does the same. 
Peter and Chouvalof are astounded. To put an 
end to the scene, the Empress points out that it 
is very late. As a matter of fact it is three 
o'clock in the morning, Catherine retires, but 



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143 



before she has had time to go to bed, Alexander 
Chouvalof comes to her from the Empress, to 
bid her be of good courage, and to announce to 
her that she shall have another interview shortly 
with her Majesty. A few days after, the vice- 
chancellor in person is sent to her by Elizabeth 
to beg her to think no more of returning to 
Germany. At last, on the 23rd of May 1758, 
the two women meet again, and part apparently 
enchanted with one another. Catherine weeps 
once more, but it is tears of joy that flow from 
her eyes, ' as she thinks of all the benefits that 
the Empress has conferred upon her/ Her 
victory is complete and decisive. 



CHAPTER II 

THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 
I 

After the departure of Williams and Ponia- 
towski, after the fall of Bestoujef, Catherine found 
herself severed from all those with whom the 
chances of her destiny had brought her most in 
contact since her arrival in Russia. Zahar Tcher- 
nichef was always in the field ; Sergius Saltykof 
lived at Hamburg in a sort of exile. In April 
1759 she lost her daughter. In the following 
year her mother died at Paris (none too soon, it 
must be said), and with her the last link was 
broken that attached her to the country of her 
birth. But in Russia she had no more isolation 



\ 



144 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

to fear. Williams had been replaced by Keith, 
and Keith, it is true, applied himself with greater 
diligence to win the favour of the Grand Duke. 
Contrary to his predecessor, he found Peter quite 
efficient in the role that he intended him to play, 
a simple role of reporter and spy. Peter showed 
himself perfect in the part His perverse mind 
made him find a malicious pleasure in this base 
occupation. Ere long the services that he rendered 
to England and Prussia, to which Frederick gave 
a word of grateful remembrance in his History of 
the Seven Years War, were of public notoriety 
at St. Petersburg. This did not, however, pre- 
vent Keith from making himself useful to the 
Grand Duchess, and, like Williams, lending her 
money. 

Poniatowski, too, had been replaced. In the 
spring of 1759 there came to St. Petersburg 
Count Schwerin, aide-de-camp of the King of 
Prussia, who had been taken prisoner at the 
battle of Zorndorf (August 25, 1758). He was 
treated as a distinguished stranger who had come 
to pay a visit to the capital. As a mere matter 
of form, two officers were appointed to have him 
in charge. One of these officers had signally 
distinguished himself at Zorndorf, where he had 
received three wounds without leaving his post. 
He had the fatalistic courage of the East. Pie 
believed in his destiny. He was right : it was 
Gregory Orlof There were five brothers in the 
Guards. Tall as his brother Alexis, endowed 
like him with herculean strength, Gregory Orlof 
excelled them all by the beauty of his calm 
regular face. He was handsomer than Ponia- 
towski, handsomer even than Sergius Saltykofj a 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 145 

giant with the face of an angel. There was 
nothing else angelic about him, however. Of 
small intelligence and no education, living the 
ordinary life of his companions-at-arms, but living 
it a outrance, passing his time in gambling, drink- 
ing, and paying court to brunette and blonde, 
always ready to pick a quarrel, and to knock 
down any one who opposed him, ready to run 
any danger, and to stake his fortune on the cast 
of the die, the more so as he had nothing to lose, 
always having the air of being half intoxicated, 
even when by chance he had taken nothing, 
insatiable of every sort of pleasure, ready to go 
blindfolded into any adventure, his whole life a 
sort of madness ; such was the man who was now 
to enter into the life of the future Empress, ajid, 
still mingling politics and love, to hold for so 
long the second, if not the first place in her mind 
and heart. The first place was for ambition. 
The traits we have indicated do not make pre- 
cisely a romantic hero, but there was nothing in 
them to scandalise Catherine. She too, all her 
life, loved adventures, and consequently she was 
far from disliking adventurers. The ' headlong 
recklessness ' that she one day indicated in herself 
to the Marquis de l'Hopital, went well with that 
of Gregory Orlof. More than beauty, more than 
wit, he possessed a charm which for long was in 
the eyes of Catherine the most powerful charm 
of all, which exercised over her a kind of fascina- 
tion, which at one time attracted her in Patiom- 
kine, and which chained her for years to the 
uncouth person of this cyclops : ' he had a devil.' 

Konigsberg, where he had lived in garrison 
long kept the legend of his prowess as a viveur 



146 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



He began to form the same reputation at St. 
Petersburg, where in 1 760 he received the envied 
post of aide-de-camp of the General Grand 
Master of Artillery. The post was occupied by 
Count P. J. Chouvalof, cousin-german of the all- 
powerful favourite of Elizabeth. This helped to 
bring Orlof forward. Chouvalof had a mistress, 
Princess Helen Kourakine, whose beauty was 
the talk of St. Petersburg. Orlof became the 
rival of his new chief, and carried the day. This 
drew all eyes upon him, Catherine's among the 
rest. But he was near paying dear for his 
triumph. Chouvalof was not the man to pardon 
an injury of the sort. The confidence that Orlof 
had in his lucky star Was not at fault : Chouvalof 
died before he had time to avenge himself, and 
Catherine continued to interest herself in the 
adventures of this young man who risked his 
head in turning that of a fair princess. It hap- 
pened that he lived just opposite the Winter 
Palace. This too helped in bringing Orlof and 
Catherine together. 

This officer, so full of charm and assurance, 
was naturally an influential man in the milieu in 
which he lived. And this milieu was to have a 
main importance for a Grand Duchess of Russia, 
who was determined 1 to follow an independent 
line.' In her memoirs, Catherine returns again 
and again to the earnest desire that she professes 
to have had from the first to conciliate the good 
will of an element that she feels to be the true 
and only support of her position in Russia. This 
element she calls the Russian 'public.' She is 
for ever concerned about what this 1 public ' will 
say or think of her. She tries to win it over to 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 147 

her side. She would fain accustom it to rely on 
her in case of need, in order that she may rely on 
it in turn. This is a form of speech which is 
enough to inspire doubt concerning the authen- 
ticity of the document in which we find it At 
the time when Catherine is supposed to have 
written out these confidences, she not merely 
paid small heed to this element of which she 
thought so much thirty years before, she had 
even had time to find out that it did not exist in 
Russia, at least in this acceptation, and with so 
well-defined a place of its own. Where could a 
' public ' of this kind, that is to say, a social col- 
lectivity, endowed with will and intelligence, 
susceptible of thinking and acting in common, 
have been found in the Russia of that time ? 
Nothing of the kind was to be seen. Above, 
there was a group of functionaries and of courtiers, 
religiously subjected to all the degrees of the 
t chine and to all the steps of human baseness, 
trembling at a look, annihilated by a gesture ; 
below, the people, that is to say, a quantity of 
muscular forces capable of being put to drudgery, 
the souls only taken into account in the adding 
up of units for an inventory ; between both, 
nothing, except the clergy, a considerable power, 
but little accessible, little manageable, more likely 
to act de haut en has than de has en ka'ut, in no 
way to be utilised for political ends. It was not 
any of these that had supported Elizabeth, that 
had placed her on the throne. Something there 
was, nevertheless, that had done so, something 
which was strong and which could act on occa- 
sion, apart from all these : the army. 

Catherine loved Gregory Orlof for his beauty, 



148 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

his courage, his giant's build, his audacity, his 
recklessness. She loved him also for the four 
regiments that he and his brothers seemed to 
hold in the hollow of their hands. He, on his 
part, did not linger long at the feet of the Princess 
Kourakine. He was not the man to keep from 
lifting his eyes higher, especially when they met 
with such encouraging smiles. He was not the 
man, either, to make a mystery of his new 
amours. He had published the name of the 
Princess without caring what the Grand Master 
of Artillery would say to it ; he published the 
name of the Grand Duchess with equal com- 
posure. Peter said nothing : he was otherwise 
occupied. Elizabeth said nothing : she was dying. 
Catherine let him act as he pleased : she was not 
averse to having her name associated in the 
barracks with that of the fine Orlof, whom the 
officers adored, and for whom the men would 
have gone through fire. Later, in 1762, she 
wrote to Poniatowski, ' Osten remembers seeing 
Orlof follow me about everywhere and commit a 
thousand follies ; his passion for me was public 
property.' 

She was well pleased to be followed about. 
After Poniatowski, this violent and headstrong 
soudard must doubtless have seemed to her a 
little strong in flavour. But she was not Rus- 
sified for nothing. The taste, the necessity even, 
of such contrasts was a part of ths temperament 
of this people, which but yesterday had acquired 
a precocious civilisation, which had become her 
own people, with whom she little by little as- 
similated herself, taking their very inmost nature 
for her own. After a few months passed in the 



THE FIGHT FOX THE THRONE 149 



most cunning refinements of the most luxurious 
ease, Patiomkine threw himself into a kibitka, 
and covered nearly 2000 miles without stopping, 
without anything to eat but raw onions. Catherine 
did not travel by kibitka, but in love, certainly, 
she was ready to go from one extreme to another. 
After Patiomkine, who was a savage, she found 
charm in Mamonof, whom the Prince de Ligne 
himself considered well-bred. The sheer brutal 
passion of the Russian lieutenant gave her a 
change after the wire-drawn love-making of the 
Polish diplomatist. 

Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Parisian society 
were not, however, forgotten. It is at this time, 
in 1762, that she made friends with the afterwards 
celebrated and troublesome Princess Dachkof. 
She was the youngest of the three daughters of 
Count Roman Vorontsof, brother of the vice- 
chancellor. The eldest, Marie, had married 
Count Boutourline. The second, Elizabeth, 
dreamt of marrying the Grand Duke. She was 
the favourite. The Empress had jestingly named 
her Madame de Pompadour, and every one at 
court called her by this name. The third, 
Catherine, was fifteen years of age when, in 
1758, the Grand Duchess met her in the house 
of Count Michael Vorontsof, her uncle. She 
did not know a word of Russian, spoke only 
French, and had read all the books in that 
language that she could meet with in St. Peters- 
burg. Catherine was immensely taken with her. 
Having married Prince Dachkof shortly after, 
she followed him to Moscow, and Catherine lost 
sight of her for two years. In 1761 she returned 
to St. Petersburg, and passed the summer of 



ISO CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

that year in a datcha belonging to her uncle 
Vorontsof, situated midway between Peterhof, 
where the Empress was residing, and Oranien- 
baum, the usual residence of the Grand Duke 
and Duchess during the hot weather. Every 
Sunday Catherine went over to Peterhof to see 
her son, whom the Empress would not give up. 
On the way back she would stop at the Voront- 
sof datcha, and carry off her young friend for 
the rest of the day. They discussed philosophy, 
history, and literature, and the gravest scientific 
and social problems. Perhaps they sometimes 
chanced upon gayer subjects ; but with these 
two young women, one of whom was scarcely 
thirty, and the other not yet twenty, gaiety 
was a rare visitor. The Grand Duchess had 
grave cares at the time, and the Princess Dachkof 
was always a very serious person. Later on, 
her society became less agreeable to Catherine, 
and ended by becoming absolutely insupportable. 
But just then the future Semiramis was very glad 
to find some one with whom she could talk of 
things of which Orlof understood nothing. It 
pleased her, also, to find in the mind of a Russian 
some glimmer, however pale, of that Western 
culture for which she dreamt of making a home 
in the heart of this immense and barbarous 
empire. This little person of seventeen, who 
had read Voltaire, was a fine opportunity ; the 
firstfruits of the propaganda that she wished 
to accomplish. And then she was a Russian 
grande dame, connected by birth and by marriage 
with two influential families. This too had its 
importance. Finally, beneath the varnish of an 
education similar to her own, as heterogeneous 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 151 

and as incomplete, beneath the odds and ends 
of ideas and the scraps of learning picked up 
here and there at the chance of hurried reading, 
Catherine discovered in her friend an ardent and 
fiery soul, equipped for all hazards. The demon 
of madness, which shook the athletic frame of 
her new lover, dwelt also in this frail child. 
They went hand in hand until the day when the 
destiny of one of them was decided. 

Neither the acquisition of Orlof nor of this 
new friend, however, made up for the loss of 
Bestoujef. The statesman trained in affairs, the 
man of experience and of wise counsel, called 
for a successor. A successor was found, Panine. 
Panine was the political scholar of the ex-chan- 
cellor. Ten years before, Bestoujef had thought 
of him as a possible favourite for Elizabeth. 
Panine was then a handsome young man of 
twenty-nine, and for some time the Czarina 
looked upon him with anything but an indifferent 
eye.-- The Chouvalofs, who considered the place 
in question as a sort of patrimony, and who 
were in league with the Vorontsofs against the 
supremacy of Bestoujef, got him out of the way. 
He was sent to Copenhagen, then to Stockholm, 
where he played a somewhat important part in 
the struggle against French influence. The 
change of system, which placed Russia and 
France side by side in the same camp, neces- 
sitated his recall in 1790. Elizabeth thought of 
him for the post of tutor to the Grand Duke 
Paul, which had become vacant on the resig- 
nation of Behtieief. The Chouvalofs did not 
oppose the choice. After Alexander Chouvalof, 
after Peter Chouvalof his brother, it was now 



i$2 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Ivan Chouvalof, a cousin, who held the other 
post, which alone was of consequence. Himself 
but thirty, he did not fear the competition of 
Panine, who had aged. 

Cold, methodical, with a certain nonchalance 
which became more and more marked, Panine 
was just the man to act as counterpoise to the 
stormy temperaments of which Catherine formed 
the centre. His political ideas drew him natur- 
ally to the side of the Grand Duchess, while 
they drew him away from the Prussian tendencies 
of the Grand Duke. Like Bestoujef, he remained 
Austrian in his sympathies. The strange temper 
of Peter somewhat terrified him, the more so as 
he had cause to suffer from it himself. There 
were discussions, naturally, concerning the event, 
which seemed to draw nearer and nearer, and 
which began to occupy all minds, from end to 
end of Europe. Elizabeth was dying, and her 
death would be, not only at St. Petersburg, the 
signal of a political crisis of incalculable import- 
ance. All the interests concerned in the strife 
of parties between the great continental powers 
depended on this near eventuality. After the 
taking of Colberg (December 1761), a few months 
more allowed for the combined action of the 
Russian and Austrian troops, it was the certain, 
the inevitable, ruin of Frederick. The vanquished 
of Gross-Jaegersdorf and of Kiinersdorf had no 
illusions himself on the point. But it could be 
equally well predicted that the accession of 
Peter III. would bring to an end the common 
campaign against the King of Prussia. 

Panine considered the problem, and seemed 
inclined to solve it, if not absolutely in favour 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 153 



of Catherine's secret ambitions, at least in such 
a manner as to protect her interests against the 
hostile intrigues about the bed of the dying 
Czarina. According to an apparently serious 
authority, the Vorontsofs had nothing less in 
view than to procure the divorce of Catherine, 
and to proclaim the illegitimate birth of the little 
Paul. After which the heir of Elizabeth would 
marry the Freiline Vorontsof. Happily for 
Catherine, this too ambitious way of arranging 
things awoke the rival susceptibilities of the 
Chouvalofs, who, as a counterblast to the project, 
went to the extent of plotting that Peter should 
be sent into Germany, and the little Paul im- 
mediately raised to the throne, with Catherine 
as his guardian. Between these two opposed 
camps, Panine adopted a middle plan, declaring 
himself in favour of letting things follow their 
natural course, save that a salutary influence in 
the future government of Elizabeth's nephew 
should be reserved for Catherine, and, through 
her, for himself. Catherine listened, and said 
nothing. She had her own ideas. She also 
talked over things with the Orlofs. 



11 

Elizabeth died on the 5th of January 1762, 
without having made any change in her instruc- 
tions for the succession of Peter. Had she ever 
had the intention of changing them ? . The 
matter is uncertain. 

'The wish and expectation of all,' wrote the 
Baron de Breteuil in October 1 760, ' is that she 



11 



t 54 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

will establish on the throne the little Grand Duke, 
to whom she seems passionately attached.' 

A month later, he recounted the following : — 
* The Grand Duke had gone for a couple of 
days into the country for hunting, and that very 
day the Empress suddenly ordered that a Russian 
piece should be played at her theatre, and, con- 
trary to usage, did not invite the foreign ministers 
and the other persons at the court who were 
generally present ; so that she went to the play 
with only the few people who were in immediate 
attendance on her. The little Duke accompanied 
her, and the Grand Duchess, having alone been 
invited, was also present. Scarcely had the per- 
formance begun when the Empress complained 
of the small number of spectators, and she com- 
manded that all her guard should be admitted. 
The hall was soon filled with soldiers. Then, 
according to all reports, the Empress took the 
little Grand Duke on her knees, caressed him 
in the most marked manner, and, addressing 
some of these old grenadiers, to whom she owes 
all her grandeur, she presented the child to them, 
so to speak, spoke to them of his good qualities 
and his charms, and seemed to take pleasure 
in receiving their military compliments. These 
performances went on almost all through the play, 
and the Grand Duchess seemed well pleased.' 

If we may believe the authority that we have 
cited above, Panine, while seeming to make 
common cause with the Chouvalofs, must have 
played them false at the last moment : a monk 
had been brought by him to the bedside of 
Elizabeth, who had induced her to make her 
peace with Peter. It is more probable that 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 155 

Elizabeth could not make up her mind, or not 
in time. She had come to detest her nephew, 
but she loved her peace of mind above all. 
Her death, which had been expected for years, 
left room for the hypothesis of a revolution 
which would supply the place of her will, 
weakened as it was by debauch. The Baron 
de Breteuil wrote : — 

'When I look at the hate of the nation for 
the Grand Duke, and the errors of this prince, 
I am tempted to imagine an entire revolution ; 
but when I observe the base and pusillanimous 
air of those who are on the point of raising the 
mask, I see fear and servile obedience come 
into play with the same tranquillity as at the 
Empress's usurpation.' 

This is precisely what happened. If we 
may believe Williams, Catherine had planned 
five years before the part that she was to play 
by the dying bed of Elizabeth. ' I shall go 
straight,' she said, 1 to the room of my son ; if 
I meet Alexis Razoumofski I will leave him 
with my little Paul ; if not, I will take the 
child into my own room. At the same time 
I shall send a trusty messenger to summon 
five officers of the Guard, each of whom 
will bring fifty soldiers, and I shall send for 
Bestoujef, Apraksyne, and Lieven. I shall go 
into the death-chamber, where I shall receive 
the oath of the captain of the Guard, and I shall 
take him with me. If I see the least hesitation, 
I shall lay hands on the Chouvalofs.' She 
added that she had already had an interview 
with the hetman Cyril Razoumofski, and that 
he answered for his regiment, and engaged to 



i 5 6 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



bring with him the Senator Boutourline, Trou- 
betzkoi, and even the vice-chancellor Vorontsof. 
She even wrote to Williams : ' The Czar Ivan 
the Terrible proposed to fly to England ; for 
my part I shall not seek refuge with your king, 
for I am resolved to reign or to perish.' 

Is Williams to be believed ? According to 
the Abbe Chappe d'Auteroche, it was a quite 
different scene that took place at the moment 
of the Empress's death. The French historian 
represents her throwing herself at her husband's 
feet, and declaring her wish to serve him ' as 
the first slave of his empire.' Later on, 
Catherine was greatly offended by this account 
of things, denying it on oath with a singular 
vehemence. We may be excused from pro- 
nouncing an opinion. 

At all events Peter took possession of his 
empire quite peaceably. His reign began just 
as it had been anticipated on all hands. 
Frederick breathed freely again, and might 
well feel himself saved by the death of Eliza- 
beth. On the very night of his accession 
to the throne, Peter sent couriers to the 
different corps of his army, with orders to 
suspend hostilities. The troops occupying East 
Prussia were to stay their march. Those acting 
in concert with the Austrians were to separate 
from them. They were all to accept an armistice 
if the proposition were made to them by the 
Prussian generals. At the same time the 
Emperor despatched the chamberlain Goudo- 
vitch to Frederick himself with a letter from 
his hand giving expression to his friendly inten- 
tions. Then followed rapidly public resolutions 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 157 

and demonstrations announcing a radical change 
of tendencies and sympathies. Even the French 
players were dismissed without the smallest 
consideration. Lastly, in February a declaration 
addressed to the representatives of France, 
Spain, and Austria, informed them of what 
they had to expect under the new rule : Peter 
turned round upon his allies without ceremony, 
told them that he had decided to make peace, 
and advised them to do the same. A scene, 
picturesquely recounted by the Baron de Breteuil, 
emphasised, two days after, the last part of this 
declaration. It was on the 25th of February 
1762, at a supper-party given by the chancellor 
Vorontsof. It lasted from ten in the evening 
till two in the morning. The Czar, says de 
Breteuil, 'never ceased all the time to bawl, 
and drink, and talk nonsense.' Towards the 
end Peter rose, staggering, and turning towards 
General Werner and Count Hordt, drank a toast 
to the King of Prussia. 'Things are different 
now from what they have been for years past/ 
he said, ' and we shall see, we shall see ! ' At 
the same time he threw confidential smiles and 
looks at Keith, the English ambassador, whom 
he called 'his dear friend.' At two o'clock in 
the morning the company passed into the salon. 
Instead of the usual faro-table there was a great 
table covered with pipes and tobacco. To pay 
court to the Emperor, one was obliged to 
smoke a pipe for hours together, and drink 
English beer and punch. However, after a long 
talk with Keith, his Majesty proposed to play 
at campi. During the game, he calls over the 
Baron de Posse, the Swedish minister, and tries 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



to convince him that the declaration recently 
issued by Sweden is exactly the same as his 
own. ' It is only intended,' explains Posse, 
' to call the attention of the allies to the diffi- 
culties which would be incurred by a prolonga- 
tion of the war/ ' We must make peace,' 
declares the Emperor. * For my part, I will 
have it' The game continues. The Baron 
de Breteuil loses a few ducats to Prince George 
of Holstein, the uncle of the Czar, whom he 
had once encountered, in the course of his 
military career, on a German battle-field. 'Your 
old antagonist has got the better of you ! ' cries 
Peter, laughing. He continues to laugh and 
repeat the word, like a drunken man. The 
Baron de Breteuil, a little taken aback, ex- 
presses his assurance that neither he nor France 
will ever have the Prince as adversary again. 
The Czar makes no reply, but a little while 
after, seeing Count Almodovar, the Spanish 
minister, lose in turn, he whispers in the ear 
of the French envoy, ' Spain will lose/ And 
he laughs once more. The Baron de Breteuil, 
choking with rage, endeavours to preserve a 
cool demeanour, and replies in his most dignified 
manner, - I think not, sire.' Upon which he 
proceeds to point out what might be done with 
the forces of Spain joined to those of France. 
The Emperor only replies with mocking ' ha- 
ha's.' At last the French diplomatist sums 
up the matter : ' If your Majesty remains stead- 
fast in your alliance, as you have promised and 
as you are bound to do, both Spain and France 
are in the best of cases.' 

This time Peter can contain himself no longer. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 159 

He roars out in a rage : * I told you two days 
ago : I will have peace.' 

1 And we too, sire ; but we would have it, as 
your Majesty would also, honourably, and in 
agreement with our allies.' 

' Just as you please. For my part, I will have 
peace. After that, you can do as you like. Finis 
coronat opus. I am a soldier, and I don't joke.' 
Upon which he turns on his heel. 

' Sire,' replies the Baron de Breteuil gravely, 
'I will report to the King the declaration that 
your Majesty is pleased to make to me. 5 

It is the final rupture. The Chancellor 
Vorontsof, who is immediately informed of the 
incident, attributes the fault to his master's 
drunken condition and his peculiar temper. He 
offers his excuses. But neither at St. Petersburg 
nor at Versailles is there any uncertainty as to 
the bearing of the Emperor's words. 

'You will have imagined my indignation,' 
writes the Duke de Choiseul, 'on hearing of 
what took place on the 25th of February. I 
confess I did not expect treatment of this kind, 
for France is not yet accustomed to having its 
laws dictated to it by Russia. I do not believe 
M. Vorontsof can give you any further explana- 
tions. It is useless to demand them. We know 
all there is to know, and the final information 
that we shall get will be the news of a treaty 
made between Russia and our enemies.' 

As a matter of fact that is exactly what hap- 
pened two months later. On April 24th Peter 
signed a treaty of peace with Prussia, in which 
he inserted a paragraph announcing the speedy 
conclusion of a defensive and offensive alliance 



i6o CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



between the two powers. He announces publicly 
his intention of putting himself, with a body of 
troops, at the disposition and under the orders of 
Frederick. It is a project that he has long had 
in view. In May 1759 the Marquis de l'Hopital 
notified to his cabinet : — 

4 The Grand Duke, finding himself alone with 
Count Schwerin and Prince Czartoryski, began 
to praise the King of Prussia, and said in so 
many words to Count Schwerin that he would 
think it an honour and glory to make a cam- 
paign under the command of the King of 
Prussia/ 

At the same time Peter seemed desirous of 
seeking a quarrel with Denmark, on account of 
its German possessions. The Emperor of Russia 
was ready to stoop to avenge the injuries, real or 
imaginary, of the Duke of Holstein. A Russian 
historian has written a book to explain ' the 
political system/ as he is pleased to call it, of 
Elizabeth's successor. In his opinion the whole 
future of Russia would have been at stake if this 
' system ' had had its way. It seems to us that 
this is too much honour to Peter III. and his 
policy. Did he really dream of ' sacrificing the 
mouth of the Dvina, and cutting himself off from 
some millions of compatriots, in order that, with 
the aid of Prussia, he might lay hold of another 
shore, some hundreds of versts away, seize on 
the mouth of the Elbe, and extend his dominion 
over a few thousands of Dano- Germans ? ? We 
are inclined to think that he simply wished to 
express his admiration for Frederick, and astonish 
the Germans with his general's uniform. He 
continued to play at soldiers ; only, having the 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 



161 



choice before him, he was no longer content with 
foot-soldiers in paste. 

In the interior he proclaimed himself an 
earnest reformer. Ukase followed ukase, one 
decreeing the secularisation of the estates of the 
clergy, another the emancipation of the nobility, 
another the suppression of the ' secret chancellor- 
ship,' or political police organisation. What are 
we to think of this precipitate legislation ? Was 
Peter really and truly a liberal ? A contemporary, 
Prince Michael Chtcherbatof, explained after his 
own fashion the ukase on the nobility. One 
evening when he wished to escape the vigilance 
of his mistress, Peter called aside his secretary of 
state, Dimitri Volkof, and thus addressed him : 
'I have told Mile. Vorontsof that I shall 
spend part of the night working with you on a 
project of the greatest importance. You must 
therefore let me have a ukase to-morrow which 
will be the talk of the court and the town.' 
Volkof bowed ; next day Peter was satisfied, and 
the nobility as well. It is probable that the new 
Emperor, while influenced to some extent by his 
surroundings, and applying, without reflection, 
the ideas that they gave him, was obedient, in 
especial, to the instinct of meddling with every- 
thing which we find in most children, and which 
in him was increased by his naturally restless 
spirit. It amused him to overturn the constitu- 
tion of his empire with a signature, and to see 
about him the frightened looks of those whom 
these rapid changes alarmed. They were his 
little jokes. Perhaps, too, he thought to imitate 
Frederick. He enjoyed himself vastly, and felt 
himself in a fair way to make a great sovereign. 



f62 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Was he really in danger of alienating the 
affection of his subjects, or of shaking the 
foundations of his throne, by these measures 
abroad and at home? We cannot believe it. 
His subjects had seen so many contradictory 
measures ! The clergy was certainly wounded to 
the quick, but it said nothing. The nobility had 
had reason to be satisfied, but it too had nothing to 
say. The senate offered to the Emperor a statue 
of gold, which he refused. Later on, much was 
said about the symptoms of disorganisation which 
had begun to manifest themselves throughout 
the machinery of government before the event 
which brought the new reign to an end. Such 
observations are always made after the event. 
Meanwhile Peter reigned tranquilly, despite his 
eccentricities. Biron before him had been more 
eccentric still. The machinery of government in 
Russia resembled the massive sledge that had 
brought Catherine as far as Moscow : it was 
proof against blows. 

Peter was guilty of two capital faults— in 
making one malcontent and in exasperating 
another. The malcontent was the army. Not 
that it was so averse as people have imagined 
to changing sides, and fighting with the Prussians 
against the Austrians after having fought with 
the Austrians against the Prussians. The hatred 
of the peaked helmet, attributed to the soldiers 
commanded in 1762 by a Tchernichef or a 
Roumiantsof, seems to us a quite modern in- 
vention. The peaked helmet did not exist, and, 
German for German, the warriors of Maria 
Theresa were no less so than those of Frederick. 
Peter wished to introduce into his army the 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 163 

Prussian discipline ; it is that which his army 
could not forgive. It had a discipline of its own. 
For a slight infraction, one of those grenadiers 
whom Elizabeth cherished so dearly, and with 
such good reason, could be sentenced to 3000, 
4000, or even 5000 blows of the stick, without 
protesting against the sentence. If, sometimes, 
he did protest against this frightful torture, he 
went back to the ranks without a murmur. But 
it seemed to him intolerable that he should be 
made to go all over a manoeuvre again because 
of a fault in the ensemble. Then Peter spoke of 
changing the uniforms : that was a second offence. 
Finally, he spoke of suppressing the Guards, as 
his grandfather had suppressed the Strelitz. This 
was to lay hands on the Holy of Holies. For 
nearly half a century the Guards had been the 
most solid and stable thing in the empire. The 
new Czar began by dismissing the bodyguards, 
those whose under-officers the late Empress had 
invited to dinner. He replaced them by a Hol- 
stein regiment. Prince George of Holstein was 
named Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, 
and placed at the head of the horse-guards, who 
had always had the sovereign himself as their 
Colonel. It was too much to be endured. It 
seems to us that the almost unanimous testimony 
of contemporaries in regard to the hostile public 
feeling evoked by the new Emperor refers entirely 
to these military reforms, and to the effect which 
they produced in the ranks of the army. We 
know already what the word ' public ' meant in 
Russia. 

The exasperated malcontent was Catherine. 
In this respect a positive madness seemed to 



i6 4 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



have come over Peter. On January 15, 1762, the 
Baron de Breteuil wrote to the Due de Choiseul — 
' The Empress is in the cruellest state and 
treated with the most marked contempt. I have 
told you how she endeavoured to fortify herself 
with philosophy, and how little this food consorts 
with her disposition. I now know, for certain, 
that she is already much put out by the way in 
which the Emperor treats her, and by the airs of 
Mile, de Vorontsof. I should not be surprised, 
knowing her courage and violence, if this were 
to drive her to some extremity. I know that 
some of her friends are doing their best to pacify 
her, but they would risk everything for her, if she 
required it.' 

In the month of April, when he took up his 
residence in the new palace which had just been 
finished, Peter occupied one of the wings, and 
assigned to his wife apartments at the other 
extremity. Close to him was lodged Elizabeth 
Vorontsof. From a certain point of view this 
arrangement was quite agreeable to Catherine ; it 
gave her more liberty, and she needed it in every 
way : she was once more enceinte, and, this time, 
without the slightest possibility of assigning the 
paternity to the Emperor. It was none the less 
a visible sign of the contemptuous treatment 
which the Baron de Breteuil speaks of, and the 
official recognition, so to speak, of a state of 
things difficult to tolerate. Peter constantly 
subjected her to the most gross and offensive 
treatment, the most paltry and cruel bickerings. 
One day, as he was supping with his mistress, he 
sent for Count Hordt, who was with the Empress. 
The Swede, not daring to say to Catherine where 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 165 

he was wanted, declined the invitation. There- 
upon Peter arrived himself, announcing brutally 
to the Count that they were waiting for him at 
the Vorontsof s, and that he must make up his 
mind to come. Another day, having discovered 
that the Empress was very fond of fruit, he 
ordered that none should be served at table. 
From time to time he had fits of jealousy. 
Catherine, according to the general custom of 
the time, even among young and pretty women, 
took snuff. She acquired the habit at an early 
age, and clung to it all her life. Sergius Galitzine 
relates that she had to give up snuff-taking, by 
the Emperor's command, because she had once 
asked his (Sergius's) father for a pinch of snuff. 
The scene is well known in which the Emperor 
apostrophised the Empress in public, and flung at 
her head a gross insult. It was the 21st of June 
1762, at a dinner of four hundred people, the 
dignitaries of the three first orders and the foreign 
ministers, on the occasion of the ratification of 
the treaty of peace with Prussia. The Empress 
was seated in her usual place in the middle of 
the table. The Emperor, having on his right 
the Baron von Goltz, was seated at one end. 
Before drinking the health of Frederick, the 
Emperor proposed that of the imperial family. 
Scarcely had the Empress set down her glass, 
when he sent his aide-de-camp, Goudowitch, to 
know why she had not risen to do honour to the 
toast. She replied that as the imperial family 
consisted only of the Emperor, herself, and her 
son, she had not thought it necessary. Peter 
immediately sent back Goudowitch, with orders 
to tell the Empress that she was a fool (doura), 



1 66 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

and that she ought to know that the two Princes 
of Holstein, his uncles, formed part of the im- 
perial family. And, fearing no doubt that Goudo- 
witch would not execute his commission faithfully, 
he himself shouted ■ Doura ! 1 across the table, 
addressing the compliment to the one for whom 
it was intended. Every one heard the word. 
Tears started from Catherine's eyes. 

These were but insults. Peter had the folly 
of adding threats. The same day, the Freiline 
Vorontsof received the order of St. Catherine, 
which was habitually reserved to princesses of 
the blood-royal. Catherine herself had only had 
it after having been officially designated as the 
fiancde of the future Emperor. It even appears 
that on leaving the table, drunk as usual, Peter 
gave the order to Prince Bariatinski to arrest the 
Empress, and only the entreaties of Prince 
George of Holstein persuaded him to revoke his 
decision. But it was matter of general belief 
that, urged on by the Vorontsofs, he would pro- 
ceed to this extremity. Catherine would be shut 
up in a convent, Paul thrown into prison, and 
the favourite legally married. She had certainly 
gained an absolute hold over him. She was 
just the mistress for this imperial puppet, half 
German corporal. She was not pretty ; ' ugly, 
common, and stupid,' says Masson. The Ger- 
man Scherer, who has only praises for Peter, 
admits that he gave evidence, in his choice of a 
companion, of deplorable taste — the only fault, in 
his eyes, that is to be found in him. She was 
worthless and without education. ' She swore 
like a trooper, squinted, and spat while talking.' 
It seems that she sometimes beat the Emperor, 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 167 

but she got drunk with him, which was some 
compensation. It is reported that at the very 
moment of the revolution, which hurled down 
Peter and his mistress, the manifesto destined to 
remove Catherine from the throne, and to set up 
the Vorontsof in her place, was made out, and 
ready to be published to the world. 

Thus did Catherine find herself face to face 
with a dilemma, of which both ways indicated a 
terrible risk to run, with this difference, that 
there was nothing to gain on one side and 
not much to lose on the other. She made her 
choice in consequence. 

in 

The history of the conspiracy of 1762, which 
cost the throne and the life of Peter III., has 
yet to be written, and, up to the present, suffi- 
ciently authentic and definite documents for the 
historian are lacking. Rulhiere seems to be 
utterly mistaken in regard to the part played by 
Panine and the Princess Dachkof in bringing 
about this event. According to him they did 
little or nothing. Nevertheless, according to 
him, it is the Princess Dachkof who began, by 
sacrificing her virtue in order to win over Panine, 
who was himself little disposed to run the risk. It 
must be added that the scruples of the Princess 
were owing mainly to her belief that a very near 
relationship existed between her and the man 
whose homage she at first repulsed. She 
thought she was his daughter. An obscure 
intermediary, the Piedmontese Odard, afterwards 
secretary to Catherine, persuaded her out of this 



1 68 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

notion, and after that the two lovers were soon 
in agreement. Unhappily they were not from 
the first in agreement with Catherine as to the 
end towards which their efforts were to tend. 
The Princess's reading, the residence of Panine 
at Stockholm, had imbued them both with 
republican ideas. They would not give the 
power to Catherine save on certain conditions. 
Catherine declined any sort of compromise, and, 
having the Orlofs under her hand, seemed dis- 
posed to go without the services which were 
offered her at such a price. They therefore 
decided to work independently towards the dis- 
lodgment of Peter, waiting on the event to see 
how he should be replaced. It was an instance 
of the 'parallel action,' of which recent events 
have given rise to further instances. Princess 
Dachkof and Panine recruited partisans among 
the high officers of the army, stooping sometimes 
to the very soldiers. The Orlofs worked among 
the soldiers, and made several tentatives among 
the chiefs. Sometimes they met one another in 
the barracks, and, not being mutually acquainted, 
looked upon one another with suspicion. At 
length Catherine succeeded in uniting the two 
intrigues, and took the direction of the move- 
ment into her own hands. 

Such is the account of Rulhiere. Convincing 
as it has seemed to-day to the most intelligent 
writers, it is easy to find in it grave objections. 
The portrait that Diderot, who afterwards knew 
the Princess Dachkof at Paris, has left of this 
beauty, is one 

' The Princess is by no means beautiful ; she is 
small ; her forehead is high and broad, she has 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 169 

fat puffy cheeks, eyes neither large nor small, a 
little deeply set in their sockets, black eyes and 
eyelashes, a flat nose, a large mouth, thick lips, 
bad teeth, a round, straight throat of the national 
shape, the chest convex, no figure, promptitude 
in her movements, few graces, nothing im- 
posing/ 

She seems, certainly, to have exercised a 
certain influence, due perhaps to the vivacity of 
her character, on the indolent spirit of the future 
minister of Catherine ; that she can have had the 
power to rid him not only of his indolence, but 
also of his habitual prudence, to the point of 
implicating him in an enterprise of which he was 
well able to appreciate all the danger, seems to 
us more than doubtful. That on her side Cathe- 
rine should have put her interests, her destiny 
and that of her son, her ambition, and her very 
life, into the hands of this conspiratress of 
eighteen, is what we find the greatest diffi- 
culty in admitting as possible. The Princess, 
too, has told us in her memoirs the manner in 
which her first advances were received. It was 
a little before the death of Elizabeth. One 
winter evening, towards midnight, the Grand 
Duchess, who had already gone to bed, saw her 
friend appear, trembling with fright or cold, and 
entreating her to confide in her, in view of the 
dangers which surrounded her. She desired to 
know what was the plan of the future Empress, 
and what instructions she had to give her. 
Catherine first of all did her best to keep this 
intrepid adventuress from catching cold. She 
made her lie down by her side, covered her up 
with the bedclothes, and then gently advised her 
12 



170 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

to return to her own bed and not be frightened. 
She had no plan, and she put her trust in 
Providence. 

In reality no one, among those who were 
most concerned in foreseeing the great event, 
had any suspicion of its approach, or saw it 
coming. Who could pay any attention to the 
obscure and unmethodical machinations of a few 
hare-brained creatures ? According to one of 
the versions that we owe to the Princess Dach- 
kof, the very conspirators themselves had no 
better view of things : ' The affair was well 
forward before she, or the Empress, or any one 
at all, was aware of it. Three hours before the 
revolution there was not a soul who expected it 
in less than three years.' 

At all events it seems that, up to the last 
moment, there was no settled plan, nor even any 
very definite idea, on the part of any one, as to 
the course to be followed and the methods to be 
used in attaining the end in view. How was 
Peter to be dethroned and Catherine set in his 
place ? No one knew. According to Odard's 
confidences to Beranger, several attempts were 
made, without success, to seize the Emperor. 
As far as one can judge, they went forward at 
hazard. The Princess Dachkof, so much is 
probable, spoke to some officers. There was, it 
is certain, a whole propaganda, a work of cor- 
rupting and tampering, carried on in the barracks 
by the brothers Orlof on a wide scale. Money 
was not lacking, even before the tentative finally 
made upon the Baron de Breteuil. At the 
beginning of March, Gregory Orlof occupied the 
post of paying officer to the artillery. The 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 171 

grand master of artillery, the luckless lover of 
the Princess Kourakine, had just died, and had 
been succeeded by a former chamberlain of the 
young court, who had been removed from his 
post by Elizabeth on account of his excessive 
devotion to Catherine — the Frenchman Villebois. 
Villebois was the son of a page of Peter I., who 
had afterwards been made vice-admiral. It was 
written that a Frenchman once again should 
play an important part in the coup ddtat destined 
to give a new ruler to Russia, and that La 
Chetardie should have a successor. It is pro- 
bable, indeed, that the choice of Gregory Orlof 
was due to the personal intervention of the new 
grand master, inspired, no doubt, by Catherine 
herself. Nothing seemed to point out the young 
officer as a suitable person for such a post of 
confidence. One might as well have put the 
cash-box on deposit in the cave of Ali-Baba. 
The second in command under Villebois, Lieu- 
tenant-General Pournour, made the observation. 
He was informed that Orlof was protected by 
the Empress, and he bowed. The paying 
officer made heavy demands upon the treasury. 
In this way not less than ninety-nine soldiers in 
each regiment of the Guard had been gained 
over — the Ismailofski (the first before which 
Elizabeth had presented herself on the day of 
the coup cCe'tat), the Siemienofski, the Preobra- 
jenski, and the regiment of horse guards in which 
served the famous Patiomkine. 

Catherine was sometimes induced to give 
direct and personal aid to those who were re- 
cruiting in her interests. She seems, neverthe- 
less, to have shown much restraint and discretion 



172 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

in the matter. One of the grenadiers won over 
by Alexis Orlof, the grenadier Strolof, required 
a sign from the Empress. He was promised 
that if he would be in the Czarina's way in the 
course of her promenade in the park of the 
imperial palace, he should have this sign : her 
Majesty would give him her hand to kiss. 
Catherine lent herself readily to the plan, by 
which she ran no sort of risk. ' Everybody 
kisses my hand,' she said, later on, to Chrapo- 
wicki. But the brave soldier was moved to 
the depths of his soul. He shed tears as he 
bent over the imperial hand, and asked no 
further conviction. 

The last to be convinced, in this conspiracy, 
would seem to have been Catherine herself. In 
the account that she is supposed to have written 
of this period of her life, she states that she 
refused to lend an ear to the proposals that were 
made to her from the time of Elizabeth's death, 
until, after having publicly insulted her, Peter 
carried his spite and extravagance to the point of 
wishing to have her arrested. The incident, as 
we know, happened on the 21st of June, that 
is to say, only a few weeks before the coup d'dtat. 
But even then, and up to the time of the 
coup d'etat itself, no active part is known to 
have been taken by the future Empress in the 
operations of her friends. Her part, up to the 
last moment, would seem to have been a part 
of attitude and bearing alone. In this respect 
she was admirable. The art with which she 
always continued to take the opposite side to 
her husband, and tone down whatever was 
offensive in his conduct by some counterpart 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 173 

exaggeration of behaviour, places her among the 
finest political actresses of all time. The death 
of Elizabeth, and the complication of ceremonies 
which arose from the clashing of the rites of the 
Greek Church with the court etiquette over the 
mortal remains of the Empress, provided a fresh 
occasion for the new Emperor to display the 
singularity and churlishness of his disposition. 
He did not fail to take it, showing himself 
indecorous to excess. Catherine protested, and 
won the admiration and sympathy of all by her 
manifestations of respect and filial piety. 

* No one/ wrote the Baron de Breteuil, 'has 
been more assiduous in carrying out the late 
Empress's funeral rites, which, according to the 
Greek Church, are numerous and most super- 
stitious, and at which she must certainly laugh 
in her sleeve, but the clergy and the people 
believe her to be deeply affected, and are highly 
delighted.' 

There is a portrait of her in the morning 
dress which she always wore at this time. She 
observed carefully all the religious ceremonies, 
fasts, jours maigres, holidays, everything for 
which Peter affected the most absolute contempt. 
At a solemn mass, sung in the chapel of the 
palace, on the occasion of Trinity Sunday, the 
Austrian ambassador was amazed to see the 
Emperor walking unceremoniously about the holy 
edifice, and talking aloud during the service with 
the gentlemen and ladies of the court, while 
the Empress, motionless in her place, appeared 
buried in her prayers. 

Peter, growing more and more violent as time 
went on, forgot himself to the extent of inflicting 



174 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

manual correction upon the members of his im- 
mediate retinue, upon high dignitaries, upon his 
most devoted followers, in public, before the 
assembled court. Narychkine, Mielgounof, Vol- 
kof, had in turn to suffer these indignities. 
Catherine was sweetness itself. All who came 
near her united in praise of her affability, her 
evenness of temper, her good graces. To the 
brutalities of the Emperor, of which she was 
herself one of the victims, she gently opposed 
the most dignified deportment, well made to 
inspire sympathy, without allowing sympathy 
to degenerate into pity and disesteem. At the 
famous banquet where the Emperor flung at her 
the word ' Fool ! ' she let some tears be seen, just 
enough to touch the hearts of those who wit- 
nessed the painful scene ; then, turning immedi- 
ately to Count Strogonof, who was standing 
behind her chair, she begged him to tell her 
something merry, to make her laugh and dis- 
tract people's attention. 

At one moment she carried her science of 
dissimulation so far as to become amiable 
and considerate for Peter himself. The diplo- 
matic correspondence notifies an unexpected re- 
conciliation of husband and wife. The Empress 
appeared, smiling and gracious, at the Emperors 
suppers, in the midst of orgies of beer and 
tobacco. She endured stoically the odour of 
pipes, the heavy German drunkenness, the low 
talk of drinkers. It was the critical moment. 
Catherine, as we have said, was enceinte. She 
had need to hide the fact from all eyes, and 
especially from the eyes of the Emperor. There 
is a story that on the day when she was taken 



THE FIGHT FOR THE THRONE 175 

with the pangs of childbirth, her faithful valet 
de chambre, Chkourine, set fire to a house be- 
longing to him in one of the suburbs of the city, 
in order to attract the curious in that direction. 
Peter ran off there, naturally, to enjoy the sight, 
and distribute insults and blows of his cane. 
His favourites followed. Catherine gave birth, 
on the 23rd April, to a son, who took the name 
of Bobrinski, and became the founder of one of 
the most important families in Russia. We 
shall meet him again later on. It was at this 
time that, a courtier complimenting the Empress 
on looking so well, and bringing such a ray of 
beauty into the company, she could not resist 
saying : ' You have no idea how much it some- 
times costs me to look well.' 

But where was all this to lead ? She little 
knew, in all probability. A day would come, 
no doubt, when the subterranean labour of her 
friends would come to the light of day, bringing 
with it an explosion ; when the extravagances 
of her husband would come to a crisis : then it 
would be time for her to act. Then she would 
act. Meanwhile, as she had said to Princess 
Dachkof, she put her trust in Providence. 
According to Frederick, it was the best she 
could have done. 1 She could not yet carry 
anything through,' he said afterwards, recalling 
these times ; ' she threw herself into the arms 
of those who were ready to save her.' That 
ability in the conduct of affairs, that sureness 
of vision, that prudence and dexterity needed 
to pull through an enterprise of this sort, were 
never specially in her line. It was in her tempera- 
ment that her true superiority was to be found, 



i 7 6 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



by that that she really shone. It was on this 
account that she had always to rely principally, 
as she did all her life, on that superior and 
mysterious force that she invoked in speaking 
to the Princess Dachkof, and whose might 
Frederick himself did not deny, irreverently 
calling it 'His Sacred Majesty Chance.' To 
abandon herself to Orlof, as she did now, or to 
Patiomkine, as she did later, was really, properly 
speaking, nothing else. Chance brought good 
luck with Orlof, good luck, and perhaps genius, 
with Patiomkine, disaster with Zoubof. But 
Catherine still remained great. For the moment, 
chance gave her the victory. Chance did not, 
however, act alone ; but rather with the aid of 
the man most interested in bringing the enter- 
prise to nought. 1 He let himself be dethroned 
as a child lets himself be sent to bed,' said « 
Frederick, speaking of Peter III. 



CHAPTER III 

THE VICTORY 
I 

Peter left St. Petersburg June 24th for Or- 
anienbaum. On the 22 nd there was a supper 
at which 500 guests sat down, and there were 
fireworks after the supper in honour of the peace 
with Prussia. On the 23rd the feasting still 
continued, and it continued afterwards at Or- 
anienbaum with a smaller number of guests. The 



THE VICTORY • 177 

sojourn of the Emperor in his summer residence 
was /to be of short duration. Peter intended 
shortly to rejoin his army in Pomerania and put 
to flight the Danes, until he had the chance of 
making his name glorious on some vaster battle- 
field, whither his new ally should summon him. 
He meant to embark at the end of July. The 
fleet, reduced by sickness, was not really in con- 
dition to set sail. Peter was not at a loss. He 
signed a ukase ordering the sick sailors to get 
well. 

These warlike projects caused some anxiety to 
his friends, beginning with Frederick himself. 
His Prussian Majesty's envoys, the Baron von 
Goltz and Count Schwerin, had not failed to 
remonstrate with him on the subject. Was it 
prudent for the Emperor to leave his capital 
-and his empire before allowing himself time to 
establish himself upon his throne, before even 
having been crowned ? Frederick insisted per- 
sonally on this last point. Before undertaking 
any enterprise, he should go to Moscow and 
assume the diadem of the Czar. In a country 
like Russia this question of form was of immense 
importance. Peter would listen to nothing. 
' One is sure of the Russians when one knows 
how to take them,' he said. He imagined that 
he had this knowledge. 

He imagined also that he had his eye upon 
the possible conspirators. The two Orlofs had 
been pointed out to him. One of their friends, 
Lieutenant Perfilef, put himself at the disposal 
of the Czar, and undertook to spy on the five 
brothers, and play them into his hands. It was 
he himself who played into their hands. The 



i;8 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Orlofs were distrustful of him, and at the last 
moment made merry over the confident traitor. 

On June 29th, Catherine, whom Peter had had 
the imprudence to leave behind at St. Petersburg, 
had herself to take up her summer quarters. 
She received orders to go to Peterhof. At 
Oranienbaum it was Elizabeth Vorontsof who 
reigned. Paul remained at St. Petersburg under 
the care of Panine. Peter nevertheless counted 
on seeing his wife before setting out on the pro- 
posed campaign. He had put off the date of his 
departure in order to celebrate the 10th of July 
(29th June), his feast-day. He meant to cele- 
brate it at Peterhof. On the morning of the 9th 
he set out for the palace, where a grand dinner 
was to be given in his honour by the Empress 
on the following day. Peter travelled slowly, 
taking a large following after him, among which 
were seventeen ladies. He did not arrive at 
Peterhof till two o'clock. A surprise was await- 
ing him ; the chateau was empty. Peter found 
only a few servants overcome with terror. 

1 And the Empress ? ' 

' Gone ! ' 

' Where ? ? 

No one knew, or no one would answer. A 
peasant approached and handed a paper to the 
Emperor. It was a letter from Bressan, the former 
French valet of Peter, whom he had appointed 
to the supervision of the manufacture of Gobelins. 
Bressan wrote that the Empress had arrived at 
St. Petersburg that morning, and had been pro- 
claimed sole and absolute sovereign. Peter 
could not believe his eyes. He rushed like a 
madman through the empty rooms, hunted in 



THE VICTORY 



179 



every corner, and all through the gardens, calling 
the Empress again and again. The crowd of 
frightened courtiers followed him in his useless 
search. They had at last to give in to the 
evidence of their own eyes. 

What had happened? No one has ever quite 
known. The uncertainties and contradictions which 
have already embarrassed us in the course of our 
narrative confront us once more at this juncture. 
The narrative of Princess Dachkof seems in 
many respects dubious, and that of Catherine 
does not bear examination. On the night of the 
8th or 9th July Catherines friend appears to 
have been awakened by one of the Orlofs, with 
the news of the arrest of one of the conspirators, 
Captain Passek. It meant the discovery of the 
plot and the certain ruin of all who had taken 
part in it. Princess Dachkof did not hesitate. 
She gave orders to give the immediate alarm to 
the Ismailofski regiment, that of which they 
were most certain ; to prepare it to receive the 
Empress ; and at the same time to send for her 
to Peterhof. It was done. There was, never- 
theless, a certain hesitation on the part of the 
Orlofs. The youngest brother, Theodore, came 
back a few hours afterwards to submit their 
objections to the Princess. Was it not too soon 
to venture on so bold a stroke ? She declared 
angrily that they had wasted too much time 
already. He bowed to her will, and all obeyed. 
That is the friend's version. Catherine's is quite 
different. A few years afterwards she was 
greatly wroth with Ivan Chouvalof, ' the basest 
and most cowardly of men,' who has dared to 
write to Voltaire 1 that a girl of nineteen had 



i8d 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



changed the government of Russia.' Most as- 
suredly, she declares, the Orlofs had something 
else to do than to put themselves at the com- 
mand of a little scatter-brain. To the last 
moment, on the contrary ' she was kept from 
knowing the most essential part of this affair.' 
Everything was done under the ' quite personal ' 
direction of Catherine, and of Catherine alone, 
in consequence of plans which had been made 
and agreed upon 'six months before/ between 
her and the heads of the conspiracy. Six months 
before ! Is this really true ? Has not Catherine 
herself said elsewhere that she paid no heed to 
the proposals for the dethronement of her hus- 
band till after she had been publicly insulted 
by him — that is to say, only three weeks before 
the 9th of July ? 

It is all very uncertain. Quarrels between 
jealous women usually are. Moreover, both may 
have spoken in good faith, recalling as they did, 
so long afterwards, memories blurred with mists 
of emotion, and attributing to themselves an 
imaginary part in the events that they both 
imagined they had conducted, and by which they 
were both most likely conducted themselves. It 
is probable that the arrest of Passek, due, as it 
seems, to a mere accident, hastened things on, 
and decided the conspirators to risk everything 
in order to save their lives, which they saw to be 
in danger. It is certain that, on the 9th of July, 
at five o'clock in the morning, Alexis Orlof pre- 
sented himself suddenly at Peterhof, and brought 
the Empress back to St. Petersburg. 

Catherine was sound asleep — it is she who 
gives us this detail — when the young officer 



THE VICTORY 



181 



entered her room. Nothing had yet been 
decided on, and she was not prepared for any- 
thing. To understand the scene which followed, 
according to her own story of it, one must have 
come in contact with primitive natures like that 
of this Orlof. One meets many like them 
to-day in Russia. The thought of such folk 
being utterly without any complication, their 
expression of this thought is always simple. 
The art of preparation is unknown to them, 
and all the fine shades. They say exactly what 
they have to say, going straight to the point. 
They say in the same manner and with the 
same tone the most commonplace or the most 
startling of things. They speak always in 
monochord. If the moon were to fall from 
the sky, a peasant near Moscow would say to 
you, 1 The moon has fallen,' in the same tone 
as he would tell you that his cow had had a 
calf. Alexis Orlof simply woke the Empress 
and said to her: ' It is time to get up. Every- 
thing is ready for your proclamation.' 

She asked for explanations. He said, ' Passek 
is arrested. You must come.' That was all. 
She dressed herself hurriedly, without 'making 
a toilette,' and jumped into the coach that had 
brought Orlof. One of her women, the Charo- 
grodskaia, took her place by her side, Orlof 
mounted in front, the faithful Chkourine behind, 
and the vehicle set out at headlong speed for 
St. Petersburg. On the way they met Michel, 
the French coiffeur of her Majesty, who was as 
usual on his way to wait upon her. He was 
taken along. 

There were nearly 20 miles to cover, and the 



182 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



horses, which had already done the distance 
one way, were scarcely able to start on the 
return journey. No one had thought of or- 
ganising a relay. This negligence was near 
costing them dear. Two horses from a passing 
peasant's cart perhaps saved Catherine, and won 
for her a crown. Five versts outside the town 
they met Gregory Orlof and Prince Bariatinski, 
in a state of great anxiety ; they changed from 
the one coach to the other, and arrived at last 
before the barracks of the Ismailofski regiment. 

1 Thus,' writes Rulhiere, ' to reign despotically 
over the vastest empire in the world, arrived 
Catherine, between six and seven in the morn- 
ing, having set out on the word of a soldier, 
brought by peasants, conducted by her lover, and 
accompanied by her lady's maid and her coiffeur' 

Only a dozen men were there. In reality, 
nothing had been seriously prepared, notwith- 
standing what Alexis Orlof had said. Drums 
were beaten. Soldiers half dressed and half 
asleep came tumbling out. They were told to 
shout ' Long live the Empress ! ' They looked 
forward to a distribution of vodka, and shouted 
whatever was told them. Two of them were 
sent for a priest, whom they brought back 
between them. The priest also did whatever 
he was told. He raised the cross, mumbled a 
form of oath, the soldiers all bowed down : it 
was done, the Empress was proclaimed. 

' The throne of Russia is neither hereditary 
nor elective,' said the Neapolitan Caraccioli ; 
4 it is occupative.* 

The proclamation made no mention of Paul. 
It declared Catherine sole and absolute and 



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183 



aristocratic sovereign (samodierjsamodierjitsa). 
This was not at all what Panine had intended. 
But where was Panine at this hour, and who 
troubled about Panine ? 

'A pack/ says Herzen, 'of oligarchs, strangers, 
pandours, and minions, brought by night an 
unknown, a child, a German, raised her to the 
throne, worshipped her, and distributed kicks 
and blows in her name to all who had anything 
to saj£ in objection.' 

Of the other regiments of the Guard, one only, 
the Preobrajenski, made some show of resist- 
ance. Simon Vorontsof, a brother of the 
favourite, who commanded a company in it, 
would not betray a cause which might pass for 
that of his sister. He was besides, as he 
proved afterwards, a man of duty and honour. 
He harangued his men ; Major Voieikof sup- 
ported him, and the regiment marched resolutely 
against the mutineers who followed Catherine. 
The two little armies met before the church 
of Our Lady of Kasan. Catherine had on her 
side the superiority of numbers, but it was only 
that of a crowd in disorder. The Preobrajenski 
regiment, on the contrary, marshalled by its 
officers, and drawn up in rank, presented an 
imposing front of battle ; it might yet decide 
the issue of the day. 

But the fortune of Catherine declared itself. 
At the moment when loyalists and rebels came 
to a standstill within a few paces from one 
another, ready to come to blows, one of the 
colleagues of Simon Vorontsof, who marched 
in the ranks, cried suddenly : ' Oura ! Long 
live the Empress ! ' It was a train of powder. 



1 84 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

The whole regiment took up the cry and dis- 
banded in an instant, the soldiers threw them- 
selves into the arms of their comrades, and then, 
falling on their knees, they asked pardon of the 
Empress for not having greeted her at once, 
accusing their officers. Voieikof and Vorontsof 
broke their swords. They were arrested. 
Catherine afterwards pardoned them, but she 
never forgot. Vorontsof had to quit the army, 
where his merits and his brilliant services 
brought him nothing but vexation. Appointed 
ambassador at London, he lived in a sort of 
honourable exile. 

Every one now crowded into the church of 
Our Lady of Kasan, where Catherine betook 
herself to receive the oaths of fidelity of her 
new subjects. Panine soon made his appear- 
ance. It is said that in the coach with him 
was the little Paul, in his nightcap. The child 
may thus have been present at his own down- 
fall, for it was really his downfall, at least pro- 
visionally, which was being consummated. After 
the revered temple it was the Winter Palace, the 
scene of so many of Catherine's past humiliations, 
that saw her surrounded with a crowd, hasten- 
ing to do homage. The senate and the synod 
came forward among the rest. These two great 
bodies had already made it their habit to march 
behind the regiments of the Guard. Another 
personage came on the scene whom Catherine 
had not at all expected to see — the chancellor 
Vorontsof. He was still unconscious of what 
was going forward, and naively demanded of 
the Empress why she had left Peterhof. For 
answer, she made sign that he was to be 



THE VICTORY 



185 



brought along. He was told to go into the 
church and take the oath. He went there. 

Lastly, elbowing her way through the crowd, 
all out of breath, agitated, and somewhat dis- 
appointed, arrived the pretended organiser of 
all this triumph — the Princess Dachkof. Her 
coach had not been able to get as far as the steps 
of the palace, but, according to her account, the 
heroes of the day, the officers and soldiers who 
surrounded the entrance, raised her on their 
shoulders and brought her in. Her dress and 
her coiffure had to suffer, but her self-esteem 
found a compensation for the mortifications which 
were soon to begin for her. For her interview 
with the Empress was briefer and less solemn 
than she had hoped for. It was not the hour 
for tender effusions, nor for grand ceremonies. 
There was serious business to be done. First ot 
all, a serious form had to be given to what had 
just been improvised in a burst of youthful energy 
and victorious boldness. A manifesto was neces- 
sary. It was an obscure employe from the 
chancellor's office, Tieplof, who was appointed to 
draw it up. Why not Panine ? There are 
various stories current on this subject. Did the 
tutor of the little Paul actually think it apropos, 
even at this moment, and had he the courage, 
to stand up for his favourite idea and his pupil ? 
According to one version, the officers of the 
Ismailofski regiment were opposed to the signa- 
ture of a reversal, binding Catherine not to reign 
after the end of Paul's minority. According to 
another version, the reversal dictated by Panine, 
and imposed by him upon the Empress, had been 
signed and deposited in the archives of the 
13 



1 86 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Senate, but the Orlofs, by one account, the 
chancellor Vorontsof, by another, had afterwards 
withdrawn the document and handed it over 
to Catherine. The story is very improbable. 
Panine was not the man to believe in com- 
promises of this kind, and to delude himself as to 
the worth of such a guarantee. He knew the 
history of his country. The Empress Anne had 
risen to the throne under the security of a 
veritable constitutional charter. Six weeks after- 
wards nothing more was heard of it. The future 
minister might have had other reasons for not 
taking part in the drawing up of the manifesto. 

What Tieplof wrote was sent to press and 
read to the people, who cried, ' Long live the 
Empress ! ' as they had heard the soldiers cry. 
Catherine reviewed the troops, who hailed her 
once again ; and the new reign had been estab- 
lished : not a drop of blood had been shed. 
There were a few isolated scenes of disorder. 
The house of Prince George of Holstein was 
attacked and pillaged, and he and his wife were 
somewhat roughly handled, the rings of the 
Princess being torn off by the soldiers. Some 
shops were broken into, and the soldiers de- 
manded wine. One wine-merchant lost 4000 
roubles' worth. The indemnities claimed by 
the victims of these excesses amounted to 24,000 
roubles, not a very serious amount. When the 
evening was come, and the intoxication of the 
moment had worn off, and Catherine and her 
companions, once more in the Winter Palace, 
proceeded to review the situation, a certain 
anxiety began to be felt. If, from one point of 
view, everything in regard to the establishment 



THE VICTORY 



187 



of the throne had been done, from another, every- 
thing had yet to be done. All would count for 
nothing if Peter were to make a resistance. 

Was it within his power to do so ? The answer 
left no room for doubt, and perhaps Panine was 
just then considering it. Peter had with him 
about 1500 Holsteiners, an excellent body of 
men, and ready, according to all appearance, to 
fight for him to the last, especially as they 
would be fighting for themselves at the same 
time. At the head of this little army was the 
first soldier of Russia, and one of the first of the 
epoch — Field- Marshal Munich. Recalled by the 
new Emperor from Siberia, he would never desert 
his benefactor. Now Catherine herself had at 
her command only the four regiments that had 
proclaimed her. The main body of the Russian 
force was in Pomerania, as yet belonging to no 
one, or rather ^belonging to the Emperor, and at 
his command. If Peter made a resistance, if he 
gained time, if he made the most of the name 
and fame of his victorious marshal, would not 
this Pomeranian army obey his orders, and come 
to the rescue ? He was the Emperor, and he 
was about to open a new campaign, a prospect 
generally agreeable to the soldier, especially after 
a series of brilliant successes. Up to the present 
he had only given offence to the Guards, of whose 
privileges all the rest of the army was jealous. 
The Orlofs, on their side, had not used their 
influence beyond this point. The problem was 
formidable. 

But where was the Emperor at this moment, 
and what was he thinking about and doing? 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



11 

After having satisfied himself that the Empress 
was not where he had expected to find her, Peter 
could not at once admit the truth, or grasp the 
whole extent, of his misfortune. The man in 
whom he placed his confidence, Perfilef, had not 
forewarned him. The hapless Perfilef had passed 
the night playing at cards with Gregory Orlof, 
thinking to have him thus under his eye. Peter 
resolved to send for information. He had plenty 
of people about him. The chancellor Vorontsof, 
Prince Troubetzkoi, Alexander Chouvalof, offered 
to go to St. Petersburg. None of them returned. 
But a Holsteiner, returning from the town, where 
he had been spending a twenty-four hours' leave 
of absence, confirmed the bad news. It was now 
three o'clock. Peter made anotrfer resolution : 
he summoned Volkof, and ordered him to draw 
up several manifestoes, by way of beginning a 
campaign on paper. Nevertheless, on the advice 
of Munich, he decided to send one of his aides- 
de-camp, Count Devierre, to Kronstadt, in order 
to make sure of this important position. An 
hour afterwards, he remembered that he was a 
soldier, put on his field-day uniform, and sent for 
the Holstein troops that had remained behind at 
Oranienbaum. His intention was to fortify him- 
self at Peterhof, and hold his own against the 
insurrection. The Holsteiners arrived at eight, 
but Peter had changed his mind. Munich could 
not answer for putting Peterhof in condition to 
stand a siege. He would have preferred to go 
to Kronstadt instead of sending there. He had 



THE VICTORY 



his plan. Suddenly Peter wheeled round, and 
agreed with his field-marshal. But by this time 
it was night. They set out, nevertheless ; but, 
one would have thought, on a pleasure-party. A 
yadht and a galley with oars took on board the 
Emperor's cortege, masculine and feminine. They 
arrived in sight of Kronstadt at one o'clock in 
the morning. 

* Who goes there ? ' cried a sentinel from the 
top of the ramparts. 

'The Emperor.' 

' There is no Emperor. Keep off! ' 

Count Devierre had been outstripped by an 
envoy of Catherine, Admiral Talitsine. 

Munich was not yet disheartened. He and 
' Goudowitch entreated Peter to disembark in 
spite of all. They would never dare fire upon^ 
them ; of that they were certain. But Peter was 
down in the hold, trembling in every limb. He 
had only had to do with cardboard fortresses. 
The women uttered piercing shrieks. The 
vessels were turned about. 

Then Munich proposed another plan : to go on 
to the port of Reval, embark on a warship, and 
make their way to Pomerania, where Peter could 
take command of his army. 

* Do this, sire,' said the old warrior, 'and six 
weeks afterwards St. Petersburg and Russia will 
again be at your feet. I answer for it with my 
head.' 

But Peter had exhausted his whole stock of 
energy. He thought only of getting back to 
Oranienbaum, and entering into negotiations. 
They returned to Oranienbaum. There too 
they met with unexpected news. The Empress 



190 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

had left for St. Petersburg at the head of her 
four regiments, and was marching upon Peter 
and his Holsteiners. 

It was a triumphal march. Catherine led the 
troops on horseback wearing the uniform of the 
grenadiers of the Preobrajenski regiment. A 
crown of oak-leaves adorned her cap, with its 
sable fur, and her long hair floated in the wind. 
By her side, dressed in the same uniform, gal- 
loped Princess Dachkof. The soldiers were in 
ecstasies. They had unanimously thrown aside 
the uniforms into which they had been put by 
Peter, tearing them to pieces or selling them to 
the second-hand dealers ; and they had returned 
to their old garb, which Peter I. had imported 
from Germany, but which passed already as 
national. They burned to measure arms with 
the Holsteiners. 

They had not this satisfaction. After a nights 
march, at five o'clock in the morning, a messen- 
ger bearing a flag of truce arrived from Peter. It 
was Prince Alexander Galitzine. The Emperor 
offered to divide the power with the Empress. 
Catherine disdained to answer. An hour after- 
ward, she received the act of abdication of 
her husband. She halted at Peterhof, whither 
Peter was brought. Panine, who had been de- 
puted to notify to him the final orders of the 
Czarina, found him in the most pitiful state. 
Peter endeavoured to kiss his hand, entreating 
not to be separated from his mistress. He cried 
like a whipt child. The favourite crawled to the 
knees of Catherine's envoy ; she too begged to 
be allowed to stay by her lover. They were 
separated none the less. Mile. Vorontsof was 



THE VICTORY 



191 



sent to Moscow. Peter was sent provisionallv 
to a house situated at Ropcha, ' a very lonely but 
a very agreeable spot,' Catherine declares, nearly 
twenty miles from Peterhof, where he was to 
remain until suitable accommodation had been 
found for him in the fortress of Schlusselburg, the 
Russian Bastille. 

On the following day, July 14, Catherine made 
a solemn entry into St. Petersburg. She had 
only remained a few hours at Peterhof. Some- 
thing, however, had happened, besides the down- 
fall of Peter. Princess Dachkof had made a 
discovery, of which she speaks sadly enough in 
her memoirs, and which, by the surprise it caused 
her, proves that, for an organiser of plots, she 
was somewhat simple. On entering the Em- 
press's salon at the dinner- hour she saw a man 
stretched at full length on a sofa. It was Gregory 
Orlof. He had before him a heap of sealed papers 
which he was nonchalantly proceeding to open. 

'What are you doing?' cried the Princess, 
recognising, by the aspect familiar to her in her 
uncle's house, documents belonging to the chan- 
cellor's office. ' No one has a right to touch 
them, except the Empress and those whom she 
specially appoints.' 

* Exactly,' replied Orlof, without changing his 
position, and with the same air of disdainful 
indifference. 1 She told me to look through this.' 
He seemed very much bored by his task, and 
resolved to get it over as quickly as possible. 

The Princess was thunderstruck. Her aston- 
ishment was not at an end. Three covers were 
laid on a table at the other end of the room. 
The Empress, arriving immediately, asked her 



192 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

friend to seat herself beside her. The third place 
was for the young lieutenant. But he made no 
move. The Empress then had the table moved 
over by the divan. She and the Princess sat 
down opposite to the young man, who still lay at 
full length on the sofa. He was, it appeared, 
wounded in the leg. 

Thus was disclosed the situation which he was 
to occupy in connection with the new sovereign. 
It was the inauguration of favouritism. 

in 

Some further ordeals still awaited Catherine at 
St. Petersburg. The very night after her return, 
there was a great noise outside the palace. The 
soldiers of the Ismailofski regiment had left their 
barracks, and demanded to see the Empress, to 
assure themselves that she had not been carried 
off. She had to get up from bed, and once 
again put oh her grenadier's uniform, in order 
to reassure them. 

' I cannot and would not,' she writes some 
months later to Poniatowski, ' tell ydu all the 
obstacles there are to your coming here. . . . My 
situation is such that I have to be extremely 
careful, and the least soldier of the Guards who 
sees me says to himself: "See the work of my 
hands." I am frightened to death at the letters 
you write me.' 

She held her own admirably, however, with 
the difficulties and dangers of the situation. 
Neither in the preparation nor the execution 
of the coup ddtat had she shown very great 
forethought or capacity, qualities, certainly, de- 



THE VICTORY 



193 



sirable in a leader ; but she had shown courage, 
coolness, resoluteness, and especially the art of 
doing things with effect. These means of action 
she still employed. All the eye-witnesses of the 
events which were then taking place at St. 
Petersburg are unanimous in praise of her calm- 
ness, her affable and yet imposing air, and the 
smiling majesty of her mien and bearing. She 
was already showing herself ' imperturbable/ 

She did not neglect, either, the means she had 
long ago chosen for the subjection of wills and 
the conquest of devotions : she manifested herself 
from the first as an ostentatious Empress, splen- 
didly rewarding those who served her, generous 
to profusion. During the first few months of her 
reign, it is a veritable Pactolus that streams forth 
upon those who have wrought for her her fortune. 
Up to November 16, 1762, the amount of indem- 
nities paid, apart from payment in kind, in land, 
and in peasants, comes to 795,622 roubles, or 
nearly four million francs at the then rate of 
reckoning. And these sums are for the most part 
but instalments. Thus Gregory Orlof has received 
only 3000 roubles out of the 50,000 assigned to 
him. The resources of the Treasury do not admit 
of more at the present. Princess Dachkof figures 
on the list of payments to the amount of 25,000 
roubles. A sum of 225,850 roubles has been 
appropriated to the remittance of a half-year's 
pay, by which the staff of the Guards' regiments 
are the gainers. The soldiers are not so well off. 
They have had plenty to drink on the day of the 
1 2th July. On this head the expense amounts 
to 41,000 roubles, or more than 200,000 francs. 
But, not long after the great event, a consider- 



194 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

able number of these Praetorians are in want, 
and Catherine does nothing for them. It is 
true that she is no longer in need of them. 

The absent are not forgotten. One of 
Catherine's first cares was to send an express 
messenger to the ex-chancellor Bestoujef, an- 
nouncing her accession to the throne, and invit- 
ing him to rejoin her in the capital. The bearer 
of this good news, chosen by Catherine, was a 
certain Nicholas Ivanovitch Kalyshkine, who, in 
February 1758, being then a sergeant in a regi- 
ment of the Guards, had been intrusted with the 
surveillance of the jeweller Bernardi, implicated 
in the Bestoujef case, and had aided in the ex- 
change of correspondence between the Grand 
Duchess and the prisoners. That, too, Catherine 
remembered. She was nevertheless raising false 
hopes in her former associate in politics. Bes- 
toujef hastened to her at once, and was received 
with open arms. Catherine was very glad to have 
at hand a man of his experience and authority. 
She paraded his name and his past services, and 
often had recourse to his counsels. But he 
no doubt anticipated recovering his place as 
omnipotent minister, indeed an influence even 
greater than he had had under Elizabeth. In 
this he was greatly mistaken. 

There were a number of similar disappoint- 
ments. Field- Marshal Munich, who had has- 
tened to make his submission, had a very 
considerable one. Catherine did not appear to 
cherish any ill-will against him on account of the 
assistance, useless, it is true, that he had rendered 
to Peter. He had only done his duty. He said 
it handsomely enough, and she seemed to lend ear 



THE VICTORY 



'95 



to it in like manner. But she did with him as she 
did with Bestoujef. She got rid of him politely. 
She judged, to use the expression of a modern 
statesman, that a new situation needed new men. 

Another to be disenchanted was Princess 
Dachkof. She had conceived of the reign of 
Catherine as a sort of transformation scene, in 
which she would continue day by day to sway 
the destinies of the empire, prancing on a noble 
steed at the head of a column of grenadiers. 
She had acquired a taste for a uniform, for in- 
trigue, for parade. She imagined herself to be 
neither esteemed and rewarded according to her 
merits, nor utilised according to her capacities. 
We shall come across her again later on, with 
her dreams, her pretensions, and all the follies 
that poisoned her own life, and gave no little 
trouble to her imperial friend. We shall also 
come across Bestoujef and Munich. 

Catherine was very near making another mal- 
content in the person of an obscure friend, of 
whom we have already spoken. Princess Dach- 
kof was not the only one to claim a principal 
share in the event of the 12th July. Four days 
after the coup d'e'tat, General Betzky was an- 
nounced to the Empress. He had been em- 
ployed in making some distributions of money to 
the soldiers gained over by the Orlofs. He had 
received an order and a few thousand roubles. 
Catherine imagined that he had come to thank 
her. He fell on his knees, and, in that posi- 
tion, he entreated the Empress to state before 
witnesses to whom she owed her crown. 

1 To God and to my subjects' choice.' said 
Catherine simply. 



196 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



On hearing these words, Betzky rose, and 
with a tragic gesture took off the ribbon of his 
order. 

' What are you doing ? ' 

4 I am no more worthy to bear these insignia, 
the reward of my services, since my services are 
disowned by the Empress. I imagined myself to 
have been the sole workman of her grandeur. 
Was it not I who raised the Guards ? Was it not 
I who scattered the gold ? The Empress denies 
it. I am the most unhappy of men.' 

The Empress turned it off with a joke. 

6 You gave me the crown, Betzky, I admit. 
Therefore I would receive it from your hands 
alone. It is you to whom I confide the care of 
rendering it as beautiful as possible. I put at 
your disposal all the jewellers of my empire.' 

Betzky took the joke seriously. He looked 
after the jewellers who had to prepare the crown 
against the day of coronation, and was satisfied. 
So, at least, the Princess Dachkof tells the story, 
in which she may well have put some amount of 
invention. 

In general, however, as we have said, Catherine 
was as generous to her friends as she was mag- 
nanimous to her enemies. The new reign began 
well. The enthusiasm with which it had been 
received in the capital found an echo in the 
remotest provinces. Suddenly a dark cloud came 
across this radiant dawn. On July 18, as she 
was retiring from the senate, where she had read 
a new manifesto setting forth the description, 
somewhat coloured, of the means whereby she 
had risen to the throne, Catherine was about to 
prepare to appear before the court, when a -man 



THE VICTORY 



197 



rushed into her dressing-room, covered with 
sweat and dust, his clothes all in disorder. It 
was Alexis Orlof. He had ridden full speed 
from Ropcha to announce to the Empress the 
death of Peter III. 

IV 

How had this come about ? It is still a 
mystery. More than in any other country in 
Europe, it yet remains for history in Russia to 
get at the true sense of the official accounts of 
great events of state. The walls of palaces built 
of granite are thick, tongues are silent. Peter 
had resigned himself to his fate with surprising 
facility. He had confined his complaints arid 
demands to three things, that he might have 
his mistress, his monkey, and his violin. He 
passed his time in drinking and smoking. On 
the 1 8th of July he was found dead. That is 
almost all that we know with certainty. 

That his death was a violent one is almost 
certain. At the time no one doubted it. Writing 
to the Due de Choiseul, the French chargd- 
d'affaires, Beranger stated that he had by him 
'everything that could justify the generally re- 
ceived opinion.' He had not seen the body of 
the sovereign, exposed in public with the usual 
ceremony, for the diplomatic corps had not been 
invited to see it, and Beranger knew that those 
who found their way there were noted. But he 
had sent a trustworthy man, whose report went to 
confirm his suspicions. The • body of the unfor- 
tunate sovereign was quite black, and ' extra- 
vasated blood oozed through the pores, and even 



198 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

showed through the gloves which covered the 
hands.' Those who thought it their duty to kiss 
the corpse on the mouth, according to the custom 
of the country, came back with their lips swollen. 

There is here a certain amount of what is 
imaginary, though in a diplomatic document. 
But the fact itself is supported by the strongest 
presumptions. As for the mode of assassination, 
since it seems that one must admit the hypothesis, 
suppositions have varied equally. Some have 
spoken of poisoning by Burgundy, Peter's fav- 
ourite wine, others of strangling. The most part 
have suggested Alexis Orlof as the author, in- 
spirer, or even executor, propria manu, of the 
deed. One version, however, which is not with- 
out authority, brings forward quite different data. 
It sets Orlof completely aside. It is not he but 
Tieplof who has done, or at least arranged it all. 
On his injunction, a Swedish officer in the service 
of Russia, Svanovitz (?), strangled Peter with a 
musket-strap. The crime took place, not on the 
1 8th, but the 15th, of July. It is not Orlof, it is 
Prince Bariatinski, who carried the news to St. 
Petersburg. 

Orlof or Tieplof, the question may seem of 
secondary or trifling importance. It is not so. 
If Tieplof was the instigator of the crime, it is 
Catherine who was the supreme instigator. For 
how can we imagine that he would act without her 
consent ? With Orlof it would be quite different. 
.He and his brother Gregory were then, and were 
for some time to be, the masters, to a certain 
point, of the situation that they had brought about, 
masters also in how they chose to follow up the 
game in which their lives were at stake. They 



THE VICTORY 



199 



had not consulted Catherine over the coup d'dtat ; 
they may well not have consulted her this time. 

1 The Empress was quite ignorant of this 
crime,' declared Frederick, twenty years after- 
wards, talking with the Comte de Segur, 'and 
she heard of it with a despair which was not 
feigned, for she justly foresaw the judgment that 
everybody passes upon her to-day.' 

'Everybody' was perhaps too much to say. 
But the great majority certainly held the opinion 
which Castera, Masson, Helbig, and others have 
echoed. In a journal of the period, printed at 
Leipzig, the death of Peter was compared with 
that of King Edward of England, murdered 
in prison by order of his wife Isabella (1327). 
Later on, there was a certain change of opinion, 
to which the memoirs of Princess Dachkof con- 
tributed not a little. On the death of Catherine 
Paul is said to have discovered in the papers of 
the Empress a letter of Alexis Orlof, written im- 
mediately after the event, and referring definitely 
to himself as the author of the crime. Bloodthirsti- 
ness, terror, and remorse all expressed themselves 
in it. The Emperor lifted his eyes to heaven and 
said, 1 Thanks be to God ! ' But the Princess 
Dachkof, who relates the scene, did not witness it. 

Among modern writers there is still some 
conflict of opinions and conjectures. Catherine 
herself, it must be confessed, did much to heighten 
the obscurity of this terrible enigma, by enveloping 
the event in all the darkness within the power of 
an absolute sovereign. If she has been wronged, 
it is perhaps she herself who, to a certain extent, 
provoked the calumny by proscribing the truth. 
Her severity in putting down all public discus- 



200 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



sion of the tragic incident went to the extent of 
attacking the work of Rulhiere, who nevertheless 
has pronounced no opinion on the question of her 
share in the murder. Despite her science of 
attitudes, that which she saw fit to assume at the 
moment of the catastrophe was not perhaps the 
best calculated to disarm public malignity, though 
it testified to the strength of her character, and 
her resources as an actress. In a council hastily 
summoned, it was decided that the news should 
be kept secret for twenty-four hours. The 
Empress thereupon appeared before the court 
without betraying the slightest trace of emotion. 
It was only on the following day, a manifesto 
having brought to the knowledge of the senate 
the news of the dreadful ending, that Catherine 
put on the air of one who has but just heard what 
has happened : she wept copiously before her im- 
mediate retinue, and did not appear in public. 

One last word on the subject of this question 
which can never be fathomed : neither Orlof, nor 
Tieplof, nor any one, was prosecuted on account 
of the drama of Ropcha. Does not this throw 
the responsibility on the sovereign, on whatever 
hypothesis ? There must have been at all events 
consent on her part, consent to what had been 
done, if not to the doing of it. And this leaves 
one spot of blood on the hands which had just 
seized the imperial sceptre. Perhaps there were 
others. But perhaps human greatness cannot 
reach certain heights without these soils, which 
bring it down to the common level of humanity. 
And Catherine was great. How, by what means, 
and despite what defects, we shall now endeavour 
to show. Not having undertaken to write the 



THE VICTORY 



20I 



history of her life, we shall here quit the narrative, 
in the course of which we have tried to indicate 
the origins and beginnings of her strange career. 
This preliminary investigation has seemed to us 
necessary for the proper placing and showing up 
of what is the real object of our study, that is to 
say, the portrait of a woman and a sovereign who, 
in both characters, has had few rivals in the history 
of the world, and the aspect of a reign which has 
been, up to the present, unequalled in the history 
of a great nation. We have endeavoured to 
show how Catherine became what she was ; we 
shall now endeavour to say what she was. 



14 



PART II 

THE EMPRESS 



BOOK I 



THE WOMAN 
CHAPTER I 

APPEARANCE CHARACTER TEMPERAMENT 

I 

* To tell the truth, I have never fancied myself 
extremely beautiful, but I had the gift of pleas- 
ing, and that, I think, was my greatest gift.' So 
Catherine herself defines the particular kind of 
attraction that nature had given her in outward 
appearance. Thus, having passed all her life 
in hearing herself compared to all the Cleopatras 
of history, she did not admit the justice of the 
comparison. Not that she underrated its worth. 
' Believe me,' she wrote to Grimm, * there can 
never be too much of beauty, and I have always 
placed a very high estimation on it, though I 
have never been very beautiful.' Did she 
deliberately depreciate her charms, through 
a modest ignorance or an artifice of refined 
coquetry ? One is tempted to believe it, on 
hearing the almost unanimous opinion of her 
contemporaries. The ' Semiramis of the North' 
flashed across the latter half of the eighteenth 
century, and over the very threshold of the 
nineteenth, as a marvellous incarnation, not only 

205 



2o6 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of power, grandeur, and triumphant success, but 
also of adorable and adored femininity. In the 
eyes of all, or of nearly all, she was not only 
imposing, majestic, terrible, but also seductive, 
beautiful among the beautiful, queen by right of 
beauty as by right of genius, Pallas and Venus 
Victrix. 

Well, it seems that her contemporaries saw 
the marvellous Czarina in a sort of mirage. The 
illusion was so complete that it extended to the 
most apparent and the most insignificant details. 
Thus, the greater part of those who came into 
her presence speak of her lofty stature, by which 
she dominated a crowd. Now, as a matter of 
fact, she was under the middle height, short 
almost, with a precocious tendency to grow stout. 
The very colour of her eyes has given rise to 
absurd contradictions. Some found them brown, 
others blue, and Rulhiere has tried to harmonise 
both accounts by making them brown with a 
shade of blue in some lights. Here is his whole 
portrait — a portrait which belongs to the period 
a little before Catherine's accession to the throne, 
at the age of thirty-seven. No portrait of an 
earlier date has come down to us with anything 
like so much detail : Poniatowski's is only four 
or five years earlier in date, and is a lover's 
portrait. 

'Her figure,' writes Rulhiere, 'is noble and 
agreeable, her bearing proud ; her person and 
her demeanour full of grace. Her air is that of 
a sovereign. All her features indicate character. 
Her neck is long, her head stands out well; the 
union of these two parts is of remarkable beauty, 
alike in the profile and in the movements of the 



APPEARANCE-CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 207 

head ; and she is not unmindful of her beauty in 
this respect. Her forehead is large and open, 
her nose almost aquiline ; her mouth is fresh, 
and embellished by her teeth ; her chin a little 
large, and inclined to fleshiness. Her hair is 
chestnut in colour, and of the greatest beauty ; 
her eyebrows brown, her eyes brown and very 
beautiful — in certain lights there seem to be 
shades of blue ; and her skin is of dazzling 
whiteness. Pride is the main characteristic of 
her physiognomy. The amiability and good- 
nature which are also to be seen there seem, to a 
penetrating eye, merely the effect of an extreme 
desire to make a pleasing impression/ 

Rulhiere is neither a lover nor an enthusiast. 
Compare, however, with this sketch the sketch 
done in pencil about this time by a Russian 
artist, Tchemessof. There is a story that this 
portrait was made at the desire of Patiomkine, 
whom Catherine began to favour just after, or 
perhaps just before, the revolution of July. 
Catherine was very pleased with it, and took the 
artist into her service as secretary to her cabinet. 
And yet what an Empress this Tchemessof 
shows us, and how unlike all that we see of 
other painters, sculptors, and memoir-writers, 
from Benner to Lampi, from Rulhiere to the 
Prince de Ligne ! The face is agreeable indeed, 
if you will, and intelligent, but so little ideal, 
but — dare one say it ? — so common. The cos- 
tume perhaps has something to do with this, a 
strange mourning attire with the hair oddly 
dressed, covering the forehead down to the eye- 
brows, and overtopping the head with a pair of 
bats'-wings. But the hard, smiling face, the 



208 



CA THERINE IL OF RUSSIA 



heavy, half-masculine features, stand out with a 
brutal frankness. You would say a German 
vivandiere turned into a nun. Cleopatra, never ! 

Was Tchemessof a deceiver, and did Catherine, 
in seeing herself in the portrait, merely show 
that total ignorance of art which she afterwards 
confessed with such candour to Falconet? It 
may be, to a certain point. We have neverthe- 
less a sort of duplicate of the Russian artist's 
sketch in a written portrait done some years 
later by Richardson, who seems to have had a 
mind and eyes of his own, not to be taken in by 
any kind of illusion. This is how he notes his 
impressions :— 

'The Empress of Russia is under the middle 
height, graceful and well-proportioned, but in- 
clining to be stout. She has a good colour, and 
nevertheless endeavours to improve it with 
rouge, after the manner of all the women of this 
country. Her mouth is well-shaped, with good 
teeth ; her blue eyes have a scrutinising expres- 
sion — something not so pronounced as an in- 
quisitive look, nor so ugly as a defiant look. 
The features are in general regular and agree- 
able. The general effect is such, that one would 
do an injustice in attributing to it a masculine 
air, and something less than justice in calling it 
entirely feminine.' 

This is not exactly in the tone of the nazf and 
all but gross realism of Tchemessof. A common 
trait, however, appears in both, and it is what 
would seem to have been the dominant trait of 
the model, and, from the point of view of plastic 
beauty, to have considerably diminished, if not 
destroyed, its charm : that mannish expression, 



A PRE A RA NCE—CHARA CTER— TEMPERAMENT 209 

namely, which is emphasised in both, and which 
we find, through all the magic of colours, in the 
work of even the least conscientious of artists. 
The portrait that was the delight of Voltaire, and 
is still to be seen at Ferney — even that betrays 
something of it. Catherine was nevertheless 
observant in the matter, and down to the very 
last. A wrinkle that she discovered near the 
root of the nose in the portrait painted by 
Lampi, not long before her death, seeming to 
her to give a hard expression to her face, 
brought both picture and painter into trouble. 
Lampi nevertheless, and quite justly, had the 
reputation of not saying the truth too cruelly to 
his models. He effaced the wrinkle, and the 
all but septuagenarian Empress took the air of a 
young nymph. History does not tell us if she 
was satisfied this time. 

' What do you think I look like ? ' asked 
Catherine of the Prince de Ligne, on his first 
visit to St. Petersburg ; ' long, lanky, eyes like 
stars, and a big hoop.' This was in 1780. The 
Empress was fifty. This is what the Prince 
de Ligne thought of her : ' She still looked well. 
One saw that she had been beautiful rather than 
pretty : the majesty of her forehead was tempered 
by her pleasant eyes and smile, but the forehead 
was everything. It needed no Lavater to read 
there, as fn a book, genius, justice, courage, depth, 
equanimity, sweetness, calm, and decision : the 
breadth of the forehead indicated memory and 
imagination ; there was room for everything. 
Her chin, somewhat pointed, was not absolutely 
prominent, but it was anything but retiring, and 
had a certain nobility of aspect. The oval, 



2IO 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



notwithstanding, was not well designed, though 
excessively pleasing, for frankness and > gaiety 
dwelt on the lips. Her fine bust had been ac- 
quired somewhat at the expense of her waist, 
once so terribly thin ; but people generally grow 
fat in Russia. If she had not so tightly drawn 
back her hair, which should have come down 
more around her face, she would have looked 
much better. One never noticed that she was 
short' 

Again an enthusiast, but the Comte de Segur, 
who piqued himself on being less so, in his 
quality of diplomatist, noted at the same time 
almost identically the same traits. ' The white- 
ness and brilliance of her complexion,' he says, 
'were the charms that she kept the longest.' 
But Castera explains in his own way her triumph 
over the 'irreparable outrage': 'In the last 
years of her reign she used a great deal of 
rouge.' It is just this that Catherine would 
never confess to. We read in one of her letters 
to Grimm, dated 1 783 : — 

* Thrnk you for the pots of rouge with which 
you advise me to brighten my complexion ; but 
when I tried to use it, I found that it was so 
crude in colour that it made me look frightful. 
So you will excuse me if I cannot imitate or 
adopt this pretty fashion, notwithstanding my 
great liking for your Paris fashions.' 

The most authoritative, the least impressive, 
testimony, from the plastic point of view, is 
perhaps that of Mile. Vigee-Lebrun, who, un- 
fortunately, never saw Catherine in her best days. 
She had nothing to praise in the conduct of the 
sovereign, so far a guarantee of her sincerity. 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 211 

She could not induce the Empress to pose to 
her. Her brush, later on, did no more than 
evoke certain recollections. Pen in hand, she 
retraced them thus : — 

' I was at first extremely surprised to find that 
she was short ; I had expected her to be mighty 
in stature, as high as her renown. She was very 
stout, but she had still a handsome face, admir- 
ably framed in by her white hair, raised up on her 
head. Genius sat on her large high forehead ; 
her eyes were soft and clear, her nose quite 
Grecian, her complexion bright, her physiognomy 
very mobile. ... I said she was short ; yet on 
her reception days, her head held high, her eagle 
glance, the composure that comes of the habit 
of command, all in her had such majesty that 
she seemed to me the queen of the world. She 
wore on these occasions the insignia of three 
orders, and her costume was simple and dignified. 
It consisted in a tunic of muslin embroidered 
with gold, the ample sleeves folded across in the 
Asiatic style. Above this tunic was a dolman 
of red velvet with very short sleeves. The 
bonnet that framed in her white hair was not 
decked with ribbons, but with diamonds of the 
greatest beauty.' 

Catherine had early adopted the habit of 
holding her head very high in public, and she 
kept it all her life. Aided by her prestige, this 
gave her an effect of height that deceived even 
observers like Richardson. The art of mise en 
scene, in which she was incomparable, has re- 
mained a tradition at the court of Russia. A court 
lady at Vienna once gave us her impressions of 
the arrival of the Emperor Nicholas in that 



212 



CA THERINE II OF RUSSIA 



capital. When she saw him enter the castle, 
in all the splendour of his uniform, his virile 
beauty, and that air of majesty that shone in 
his whole person, upright, lofty in stature, a 
head taller than the princes, aides-de-camp, and 
chamberlains, she felt that here was a demigod. 
In the upper gallery, where she was placed, she 
could not turn away her eyes from the sight. 
Suddenly, she saw that the swarm of courtiers 
had retired, the doors were closed. Only the 
imperial family and a few of the private retinue 
remained. But the Emperor — where was he ? 
There, sunk into a seat, his tall form doubled 
in upon itself, the muscles of his face released 
from constraint, settling into an expression of 
unspeakable anguish ; unrecognisable, only the 
half of himself, as if fallen from the height of 
grandeur to the depth of misery : the demigod 
was but a handful of suffering human flesh. This 
was in 1850. Nicholas was then already stricken 
by the first attacks of the disease that under- 
mined the last years of his life, and prematurely 
ended it. Withdrawn from the eyes of the crowd, 
he bowed beneath its weight. Before the public, 
by an heroic effort of will, he became once more 
the splendid Emperor of the past. Perhaps it was 
so with Catherine in the last years of her reign. 

The Princess of Saxe-Coburg, who saw her 
for the first time in 1795, begins her account of 
the meeting unpleasantly enough, saying that 
she always fancied a sorceress must look much as 
did the old Empress. But the sequel shows that 
her idea of a sorceress was by no means disagree- 
able. She praises in particular the 1 singularly 
fine complexion ' retained by the Empress, and 



A PPEARANCE—CHARA CTER— TEMPERAMENT 2 1 3 

says that in general she seemed to find in her 
' the personification of robust old age, though 
abroad there is much talk of her maladies.' 

Catherine, nevertheless, had never very good 
* health. She suffered much from headaches, ac- 
companied by colics. This did not prevent her 
from laughing at physic and physicians to the 
very last. It was quite an affair to make her 
swallow a potion. One day when her doctor, 
Rogerson, had succeeded in making her take 
some pills, he was so delighted as to forget him- 
self, and clapped her familiarly on the shoulder, 
crying, ' Bravo, madame ! ' She was not in the 
least offended. 

From 1722 she was obliged to use glasses 
to read. Her hearing, though very sharp, was 
affected by an odd peculiarity : each of her 
ears heard sounds in a different way, not merely 
in loudness, but in tone. This no doubt was 
the reason why she could never appreciate 
music, hard as she tried to acquire the taste. 
Her sense of harmony was completely lacking. 

It was pretended that when the scarves in 
which she was accustomed to wrap up her head 
at night came to be washed, they were seen to 
emit sparks. The same phenomenon occurred 
with her bedclothes. Such fables only serve to 
indicate her actual physical influence over the 
minds of her contemporaries, marvelling just 
then over the mysterious discoveries of Franklin. 

11 

' I assure you,' she writes in 1 7 74 to Grimm, 
' that I have not the defects you impute to me, 



214 



CA THERINE II OF RUSSIA 



because I do not find in myself the qualities 
that you give me. I am. perhaps, good-natured, 
ordinarily, but, by nature, I am constrained to 
will terribly what I will, and there you have 
what I am worth.' 

Observe, however, that if, as a general thing, 
she is persevering in the exercise and in the 
invariable tension of this natural energy, having 
always willed, according to her expression, ' that 
the good of the empire should be accomplished,' 
and having willed it with extraordinary force, 
in small things she is inconstancy itself. She 
wills everything strongly, but she changes her 
mind with a no less surprising facility, as her 
idea of what is 'good' varies. In this respect 
she is a woman, from head to foot. In 1767 
she devotes herself to her Instruction for the 
new laws that she would give to Russia. This 
work, in which she has pillaged Montesquieu 
and Beccaria, is in her eyes destined to open 
a new era in the history of Russia. And she 
wills, ardently, passionately, that it should be 
put into action. Difficulties, however, arise ; un- 
looked-for delays interpose themselves. Where- 
upon, all at once, she loses interest in the thing. 
In 1775 she excogitates Rules for the administra- 
tion of her provinces. And she writes : 4 My 
last rules of the 7th November contain 250 
quarto pages of print, and I swear to you that 
it is the best thing I have ever done, and that, 
in comparison, I look upon the Instruction as 
so much nonsense.' And she is dying with 
desire to show this new masterpiece to her con- 
fidant Less than a year afterwards it is finished. 
Grimm has not had sight of the document, and 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 215 

as he insists on being favoured with it, she loses 
patience : 4 Why is he so anxious to read any- 
thing so little amusing? It is very good, very 
fine, perhaps, but quite tedious.' At the end of 
a month she has forgotten all about it. 

She has the same way with men as with things : 
sudden, passionate infatuations, of an unexampled 
impetuosity, followed by disenchantments and 
by an equally rapid subsidence into the most 
complete indifference. The greater part of the 
able men whom she drew to Russia, Diderot 
among the rest, experienced it in turn. After 
having passed twenty years of her reign in 
adorning different residences which have been 
successively preferred and preferable in her eyes, 
she takes a fancy, all of a sudden, in 1786, to a 
site near St. Petersburg, which has no advantages 
in itself. She summons the Russian architect 
Starof, of the Academy of St. Petersburg, to 
build a palace there in all haste ; and she writes 
to Grimm : ' All my country houses are as hovels 
in comparison with Pella, which is rising like a 
phcenix.' 

Not being wanting, by any means, either in 
common sense or in acuteness, she comes to find 
out, late enough, what we have just noted. 
* Two days ago,' she writes in 1781, 'I made 
the discovery that I am a beginner by profession, 
and that up to now I have finished nothing of 
all that I have begun.' And a year afterwards : 
' For all that, I only want the time to finish ; it 
is like my laws, my regulations : everything is 
begun, nothing finished.' She has her illusions, 
however, and she adds : 4 If I live ten years 
longer, all will be finished to perfection.' Two 



2l6 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



years and more having passed, she ends by 
perceiving that time has nothing to do with the 
matter. ' Never have I so completely realised 
that I am a very accumulation of broken ends,' 
she declares, not without a certain melancholy. 
To which she adds, that she is 'as stupid as a 
goose,' and that she is convinced Prince Patiom- 
kine had much more notion of good management 
than she. 

She would not be a woman if it did not some- 
times happen to her not to know very well what 
she wanted, or even not know it at all, while she 
was very much in want of something. Apropos 
of a certain Wagniere, who was secretary to 
Voltaire, whose services she desired for herself, 
and whom, after all, she did not know what to 
do with, she writes to her souffre-douleur : — 

'A truce to your excuses . . . and to mine, 
for not knowing exactly, now as often, what I 
wanted, nor what I did not want, and for having 
consequently written for and against. ... If you 
will, I will found a professorship, in addition to 
the one you counsel, on the science of indecision, 
more natural to me than people think.' 

It is to be observed that a disposition of this 
kind is not made to give a firm and well-balanced 
direction to the affairs of an empire. And, in- 
deed, nothing of the kind is to be found in the 
part that Catherine played in history. If this 
part was a large one, it was — as she well knew 
herself — because she had to do with a new people, 
at the first stage of its career, the stage of ex- 
pansion. In this stage a people has no need 
of being directed ; for the most part, it is not 
even susceptible of direction. It is an 'impelled 



APPEARA NCE—CHARA CTER — TEMPERAMENT 2 1 7 

force ' which follows its own impulsion. In 
obeying it, it is in no danger of going astray. 
The sole misfortune of which it is capable is that 
of falling asleep. It would be vain and useless to 
take such a nation by the hand, and lead it into 
the way that it knows so well how to find by 
itself. It suffices to give it a shaking, and start 
it forward from time to time. That is what 
Catherine understood in the most wonderful 
way. Her action was that of a stimulant and 
a propeller of prodigious vigour. 

In this respect she bears comparison with the 
greatest men of history. Her soul is like a 
spring, always at full tension, always vibrating, 
of a temper which resists every test. In the 
month of August 1765 she is unwell, and is 
keeping her bed. Rumours are spread that 
she is enceinte, and that an abortion is to be 
procured. Nevertheless she has arranged for 
some great manoeuvres, 'a camp,' as it was 
called then, for the end of the month, and she 
has announced that she will be present. She is 
present. The last day, during the 'battle,' she 
remains on horseback for five hours, having to 
direct the manoeuvres and to send orders, by the 
intermediary of her aide-de-camp, to Marshal 
Boutourline and to General Prince Galitzine, 
who command the two wings of the army. The 
aide-de-camp, glittering in a cuirass of gold 
studded with jewels, is Gregory Orlof. Some 
months later, riots having broken out in the 
capital, she comes in the middle of the night 
from Tzarskoie-Sielo to St. Petersburg with 
Orlof, Passek, and a few other trusty friends, 
mounts on horseback, and traverses the streets 
15 



2lS 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



to make sure that her orders have been properly 
carried out, and proper precautions taken. Even 
now she has not fully recovered from the more 
or less mysterious crisis that she has passed 
through. She can take no nourishment. She, 
however, thinks well to appear cheerful and in 
good health. Festivity follows festivity ; the 
French play comes to Tzarskoie. 

Physical or moral dejection, lassitude, or dis- 
couragement, are things equally unknown to her. 
Her force of resistance seems to increase in pro- 
portion to the demand upon it. In 1791, when 
things look dark about her, when she has to face 
Sweden and Turkey, and is in danger of a 
rupture with England, she has, or affects to have, 
the most tranquil serenity, the most contagious 
good humour. She laughs and jests ; advises those 
about her to give up English liquors in good 
time, and get accustomed to the national drinks. 

And what 1 go ' ; what ardour, for ever youthful ; 
what impetuousness, never relaxed ! 

* Courage ! Forward ! That is the motto with 
which I have passed through good years and bad 
years alike, and now I have passed through 
forty, all told, and what is the present evil com- 
pared with the past ? ' 

That is her habitual tone. The force of will 
that she has at command allows her both to con- 
trol the outward expression of her feelings, and 
even to abstract herself when she will from these 
feelings when they become troublesome, intense 
as they may be, for she is far from being in- 
different, or hard to move, or naturally calm. 
Sang-froid, for instance, is not at all a part of her 
disposition. In May 1790, on the eve of a sea- 



APPEARANCE- CHAR A CTER— TEMPERA MENT 219 

fight with Sweden, she passes whole nights with- 
out sleep, puts every one about her on pins and 
needles, gets a rongeur on her cheek, which she 
attributes to the acuteness of her emotions, and 
behaves in such a way that every one, includ- 
ing her Prime Minister, Besborodko, bursts into 
tears. No sooner has she known the issue of 
the battle than her peace of mind is restored, and 
no matter what bad news may follow, she is gay 
and light-hearted again. Every moment she is 
passing through some fever or other. She falls 
ill with anxiety, and has colics. One day Chra- 
powicki, her factotum, finds her lying on a sofa, 
complaining of pains in the region of the heart. 
* It is the bad weather, no doubt,' says he, ' that 
indisposes your Majesty.' 'No,' replies she, 'it 
is Otchakof ; the fortress will be taken to-day or 
to-morrow ; I have often such presentiments.' 
These presentiments often prove deceptive, as in 
the present case, for Otchakof was not taken till 
two months after. On hearing the news of the 
death of Louis XVI., she receives such a shock 
that she is obliged to take to her bed. It is true 
that, this time, she makes no attempt to master 
or to dissimulate her emotion, which, however, is 
not inspired only by a sentiment of political 
solidarity, for the fibres of her heart are extremely 
excitable. She has not merely 1 sensibility,' after 
the fashion of the day ; she is sincerely accessible 
to sympathy and pity. 

' I forgot to drink, eat, and sleep,' she writes in 
1776, announcing the death of her daughter-in- 
law, ' and I know not how I kept up my strength. 
There were moments when my very heart was 
torn by the suffering I saw about me/ 



220 



CA THER1NE 11. OF RUSSIA 



This does not hinder her from adding to the 
letter, which is lengthy, a host of details con- 
cerning current affairs, with the usual jokes, a 
little heavy, which serve to season her familiar 
correspondence. After giving herself up to 
her impressions, she returns to herself, and she 
explains it all : — ■ 

* On Friday I seemed to turn to stone. ... I 
who am so given to weeping, saw death without 
a tear. I said to myself : "If thou weep, the 
others will sob ; if thou sob, the others will faint, 
and every one will lose their head and their 
wits. 

She never lost her head, and, she declares in 
one of her letters, she never fainted. Whenever 
she has to play a part, to take an attitude, and, 
by her example, to impose it upon others, she is 
always ready. In August 1790 she thinks 
seriously of accompanying the army reserve to 
Finland. ' Had it been needful,' she said after- 
wards, 4 I should have left my bones in the last 
battalion. I have never known fear.' 

With our present-day notions, it does not seem 
a very signal proof of courage that she gave in 
1 768, in being the first, or almost the first, in her 
capital and in her empire, to be inoculated. For 
the time it was a great event, and an act of 
heroism celebrated by all her contemporaries. 
One need but read the notes written on the 
subject by the inoculator himself, the Englishman 
Dimsdale, expressly brought over from London, 
to realise the idea that the profession itself still 
cherished in regard to the danger of the opera- 
tion. We cut open or trepan a man to-day with 
much less concern. Catherine bared her arm to 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER—TEMPERAMENT 221 

the lancet on the 26th October 1768. A week 
afterwards she had her son inoculated. On the 
22nd of November the members of the legislative 
commission, and all the chief dignitaries, as- 
sembled in the church of Our Lady of Kasan, 
where a decree of the senate was read, command- 
ing public prayers for the occasion ; after which 
they went in a body to present their compliments 
and thanks to her Majesty. A boy of seven, 
named Markof, who had been inoculated first of 
all, in order to use the lymph found on him, was 
ennobled in return for it, and received the sur- 
name of Ospiennyi (Ospa — smallpox). Catherine 
took a liking to him, and had him brought 
up under her eyes. The family of this name, 
now occupying a high position in Russia, owes 
its fortune to this ancestor. Dr. Dimsdale 
received the title of baron, the honorary charge 
of the physicians in ordinary to her Majesty, the 
rank of Chancellor of State, and a pension of 
^500 sterling. It was certainly much ado about 
nothing; but some years later, in 1772, the Abbe 
Galiani announced, as still an important piece of 
news, the inoculation of the son of the Prince of 
San Angelo Imperiali at Naples, the first that 
had taken place in that city. In 1768 Voltaire 
himself found much to admire in an Empress 
who had been inoculated 'with less ceremony 
than a nun who takes a bath.' Catherine is 
perhaps the one who thought least of her bravery. 
Before the deputations that came to compliment 
her, she thought it well to take a serious air, 
declaring ' that she had done no more than her 
duty, for a shepherd is bound to give his life for 
his sheep.' But, writing a few days afterwards 



222 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



to General Braun, the Governor of Livonia, she 
laughs at those who are lost in admiration of her 
courage : ' As for courage, I think every little 
urchin in the streets of London has just as 
much.' 

in 

Certainly, she possesses a happy equilibrium 
of faculties, an excellent moral health. It 
is this which renders her easy to get on with, 
though she has perhaps less indulgence and 
benignity than she would credit herself with, but 
still is in no wise given to wrangling, nor exces- 
sively hard to please, nor unreasonably severe. 
Outside official ceremonies, in regard to which 
she is very particular, giving to them the greatest 
possible lustre, she is full of charm in her inter- 
course with others. She has an easy simplicity 
which puts every one at ease, and which allows 
her to maintain her own rank, and to keep others 
in their proper place, without her appearing to 
give the matter a thought. On the birth of her 
grandson, Alexander, she falls to regretting that 
there are no more fairies ' to endow little children 
with all one would like them to have,' and she 
writes to Grimm : ' For my part, I would give 
them nice presents, and I would whisper in 
their ear : " Ladies, be natural, only be natural, 
and experience will do pretty well all the rest." ' 
She is bon enfant, and puts on a familiar manner. 
She hits her secretary in the ribs with a roll of 
paper, and tells him : ' Some day I will kill you 
like that' In corresponding with her master of 
the horse, M. Eck, she writes ; 1 Monsieur mon 
voisin.' 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 223 

The Prince de Ligne recounts an episode of 
the tour in the Crimea, when she took it into her 
head to be thee'd and thou'd by every one, and to 
tutoyer them in return. This whim often returned 
to her. ' You cannot conceive/ she writes to 
Grimm, ' how I love to be tutoyde ; I wish it were 
done all over Europe.' Then hear her account 
of her relations with Mme. Todi, a famous prima 
donna> whose talent she could not appreciate, but 
whom she was willing to pay very liberally. This 
was at Tzarskoie-Sielo : — 

6 Mme. Todi is here, and she is always about 
with her husband. Very often we meet face to 
face, always however without coming in collision. 
I say to her : " Good-morning or good-evening, 
Mme. Todi, how do you do?" She kisses my 
hands, and I her cheek; our dogs smell one 
another ; she takes hers under her arm, I call 
mine, and we both go on our way. When she 
sings, I listen and applaud, and we both say that 
we get on very well together.' 

She carries her condescension in the matter of 
sociability to great lengths. If any one ventures 
to criticise her choice of friends and lovers, she 
replies : ' Before being what I am I was thirty- 
three years what others are, and it is not quite 
twenty years that I have been what they are not. 
And that teaches one how to live.' On the other 
hand she makes merry at the expense of the great : 
4 Do you know why I dread Kings' visits ? Be- 
cause they are generally tiresome, insipid people, 
and you have to be stiff and formal with them. 
These persons of renown pay much respect to 
my unaffected ways, and I would show them all 
my wit ; sometimes I show it by listening to 



224 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

them, and as I love to chatter, the silence bores 
me/ 

Her proverbial munificence is not only in 
ostentation. Grimm often distributed large sums 
for her anonymously. And she puts a charming 
grace and delicacy in some of her gifts. 6 Your 
Royal Highness/ she writes to the Comte d'Artois, 
who is leaving Russia, ' wishes, doubtless, to 
make some small presents to the people who 
have done you service during your stay here. 
But, as you know, I have forbidden all commerce 
and communication with your unhappy France, 
and you will seek in vain to buy any trinkets in 
the city; there are none in Russia save in my 
cabinet ; and I hope your Highness will accept 
these from his affectionate friend Catherine.' 

What she lacks, in this as in so many things, 
is moderation. She is well aware of it herself, 
and admits : 4 1 know not how to give ; I give too 
much or not enough.' One would say that her 
destiny, in raising her to such a height, has taken 
from her the sense of proportions. She is either 
prodigal or miserly. When she has exhausted 
her resources by her excessive expenditure and 
liberalities she has ■ a heart of stone ' for the most 
worthy, the most just, demands upon her. She 
gives a third of his pension to Prince Viazemski 
on his retirement. He has served her for thirty 
years, and she has appreciated his services, but he 
has ceased to please hen The poor man dies of 
vexation. 

With those who please her, as long as they 
have that good fortune, she knows no stint. In 
1 78 1, when Count Branicki married a niece of 
Patiomkine, she gave 500,000 roubles as a 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 225 

marriage portion to the bride, and the same 
amount to her husband, to pay his debts. One 
day she amused herself with imagining how the 
principal people at her court might meet their 
end. Ivan Tchernichef would die of rage, 
Countess Roumiantsof of having shuffled the 
cards too much, Mme. Vsievolodsky of an excess 
of sighs ; and so forth. She herself would die— 
of complaisance. 

It is not only complaisance, there is in her an 
instinctive generosity which comes out in more 
than one way. With those whom she honours 
with her confidence she has none of that 
facile change of front so common to her sex. 
She is incapable of suspicion. One of the foreign 
artists whom she had commissioned to make 
considerable purchases for her gallery at the 
Hermitage, Reiffenstein — the 'divine' Reiffen- 
stein, as she called him — fancied his honesty 
suspected. Grimm, who acted as intermediary, 
became anxious about it. 

' Begone with your notes and accounts, both 
of you!' wrote the Empress to the latter. ' I 
never suspected either of you in my life. Why 
do you trouble me with stingy, useless things 
of that sort ? 5 

She added : ' No one about me has insinuated 
anything against le divin.' Grimm could well 
believe her, for she was absolutely averse to 
this kind of insinuation, so much favoured in 
courts. In general, any one did but do a bad turn 
for himself by saying evil of others. Patiomkine 
himself experienced this in trying to shake the 
credit of Prince Viazemski. 

If there was need, however, to serve or defend 



226 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



her friends, she was ready to do anything-, in 
total forgetfulness of her rank. She learns, for 
instance, that Mme. Ribas, the wife of an Italian 
adventurer whom she has made Admiral, is in 
childbed. She jumps into the first carriage that 
she finds at the gate of the palace, enters like a 
whirlwind into the room of her friend, turns up 
her sleeves, and puts on an apron. ' Now there 
are two of us,' she says to the midwife ; 4 let us 
do our best.' It often happens that advantage is 
taken of this well-known characteristic. * They 
know I am good to bother/ she says. Is she 
simply 'good,' in reality? Yes, in her way, which 
assuredly is not the way of everybody. The 
absolute mistress of forty millions of men is not 
'everybody.' Mme. Vigee-Lebrun dreamed of 
painting the portrait of the great sovereign. 
4 Take,' said some one, * the map of the empire of 
Russia for canvas, the darkness of ignorance for 
background, the spoils of Poland for drapery, 
human blood for colouring, the monuments of her 
reign for the cartoon, and for the shadow six 
months of her son's reign.' There is some truth 
in this sombre picture, but it wants shading. At 
the moment of the terrible uprising of Pougatchef, 
sharp as was Catherine in the repression of a 
revolt which put her empire to the stake, she bids 
General Panine use no more than the indispensable 
severity. After the capture of the rebel, she does 
her best to succour the victims of this terrible civil 
war. Yet, in Poland, the conduct of her generals 
is for the most part atrocious, and she never 
interferes. She even compliments Souvarof after 
the massacre which accompanies the taking of 
Warsaw. And in this empire of hers, 1 from which 



APPEARANCE- CHAR A CTER— TEMPERAMENT 227 



the light now comes,' the knout still bears sway, 
the stick still falls on the bleeding shoulders of 
the serf. She lets knout and stick do their work. 
How is this to be understood ? 

It is needful first of all to realise the conception 
— a well-reasoned and elaborated conception — of 
the position of the sovereign and of the exigencies 
of that position, which obtained in the mind of 
this autocratic ruler. We cannot make war with- 
out dead or wounded, nor can we subdue a people 
jealous of its liberty without stifling its resistance 
in blood. Having resolved on the annexation of 
Poland — rightly or wrongly, need not be discussed 
here — it was necessary to accept all the con- 
sequences of the enterprise. This Catherine 
did, taking upon herself, calmly and frankly, the 
entire responsibility of the affair. Calmly, for, 
in these matters, reasons of state alone influence 
her ; they take the place of conscience, and even 
of feeling. Frankly, for she is not a hypocrite. 
An actress ever, and of the first order, by reason 
of her position, which is nothing but a part to 
play. It is in this sense that the French envoy 
Durand could say of her : ' My experience is quite 
useless ; the woman is more false than our women 
are tricky. I can say no more.' But she was 
never a hyprocrite by preference, for the pleasure 
of deceiving, like so many ; nor by need of 
deceiving herself. ' She was too proud to deceive,' 
said the Prince de Ligne. 

In what she did, or suffered to be done, in 
Poland, she has had many imitators, beginning 
with the pious Maria Theresa herself. Only 
Maria Theresa mingled her tears with the blood 
that she shed. * She is always crying and 



228 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



stealing,' said Frederick. Catherine keeps dry- 
eyed. 

Catherine, too, followed a different principle 
of government. A sovereign, however absolute, 
cannot be everywhere at once. Souvarof has 
orders to take Warsaw. He takes it. How ? 
That is his affair, not that of any one else. The 
principle is contestable, but we have not to discuss 
political theories in a study of character. 

Finally, Catherine is a Russian sovereign, 
and the Russia of the eighteenth century, with- 
out going further, is a country where European 
ideas in regard to justice and sentiment are 
quite out of place, where both moral and 
physical sensibility seem to obey different laws. 
In 1766, during the Empress's stay at Peterhof, 
a sudden alarum one night startles her Majesty 
and all about her. There is great excitement 
and confusion. It turns out that a lackey, who 
has been making love to one of the waiting- 
maids of Catherine, has caused all this fright. 
He is brought to trial, and condemned to 
receive a hundred and one strokes of the knout, 
which is practically equivalent to a sentence of 
death, to have his nose slit, to be branded on 
the forehead with a hot iron, and to end his 
days in Siberia, if he recovers. No one has 
anything to say against the sentence. It is 
after such traits, and on the scale of notions, 
sentiments, and sensations, apparently proper 
to the surroundings in which they have root, 
that we require to judge a sovereign who, 
politically speaking, could certainly not claim 
the title of 'most gracious.' 

Apart from politics, Catherine is an adored 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 229 

and adorable sovereign. Those about her have 
nothing but praise for her dealings. Her 
servants are spoilt children. The story of the 
chimney-sweep is well known. Always an early 
riser, in order to work more quietly in the 
silence of the early hours, the Empress some- 
times lights her own fire, so as not to disturb 
any one. One morning, as she sets the faggots 
in a blaze, she hears piercing cries from the 
chimney, followed by a volley of abuse. She 
understands, quickly puts out the fire, and 
humbly proffers her excuses to the poor little 
chimney-sweep whom she had nearly roasted 
alive. There are thousands of similar stories 
told of her. One day, the Countess Bruce 
enters the Empress's bedroom and finds her 
Majesty alone, half-dressed, with her arms folded 
in the attitude of one who is waiting patiently be- 
cause she is obliged to wait. Seeing her surprise, 
Catherine explains the case — 

'What do you think? my waiting-maids have 
all deserted me. I had been trying on a dress 
which fitted so badly that I lost my temper ; 
so they left me like this . . . and I am waiting 
till they have cooled down/ 

One day she sends Grimm an almost inde- 
cipherable letter, and thus excuses herself — 

' My valets de chambre give me two new 
pens a day, but when they are worn out I never 
venture to ask for more, but I turn and turn 
them again as best I can.' 

One evening, after ringing in vain for some time, 
she goes into the anteroom and finds these same 
valets de chambre absorbed in a game of cards. 
She offers one of them to take his place so that 



230 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

she can finish the game for him, while he can 
do an urgent errand for hen She catches some 
servants in the act of making off with pro- 
visions intended for her table. 4 Let this be 
the last time,' she says, with severity; then she 
adds : ' And now, be off quickly, or the marshal 
de la cour will catch you.' She sees in the court- 
yard of the palace an old woman running after 
a fowl, and soon the valets are running after the 
old woman, anxious to show their zeal under the 
eyes of the Empress. For this fowl is a fowl 
'belonging to her Majesty's treasure/ and the 
woman is the grandmother of a court scullion ; 
a double crime. Catherine, after making in- 
quiries, orders a fowl to be given every day to 
the poor old soul, but a fowl ready trussed. 

She keeps by her, despite her infirmities, an 
old German nurse, whom she watches over with 
the greatest care. ' 1 feared her,' she writes 
to Grimm, announcing her death, 'as I dread 
fire, or the visits of kings and great people. 
Whenever she saw me, she would seize me by 
the head, and kiss me again and again till she 
half stifled me. And she always smelt of 
tobacco, which her respected husband used 
largely.' 

Nevertheless, she is far from being patient, 
for naturally she is quick-tempered, too quick- 
tempered. Her fits of rage are one of her 
most noticeable defects. Grimm compares her 
to Etna, and she delights in the comparison. 
She calls the volcano ' my cousin,' and fre- 
quently asks for news of it. For she knows 
her defect, and it is this that enables her 
to combat it effectually. If she gives way to 



APPEARANCE—CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 231 

the first paroxysm of anger, she immediately 
recovers command of herself. If it is in her 
private room, she turns up her sleeves with a 
gesture to which she is accustomed, and begins 
to walk to and fro, drinking glass after glass 
of water. Never does she give an order or v 
a signature in one of these passing fits of rage. 
In her speech she gives way sometimes to 
undignified expressions, as in her sallies against 
Gustave III. during the war with Sweden. 
* Canaille ' in French and ' Bestie 1 in German 
are too often part of her vocabulary. She 
always, however, regrets what she has done or 
said, and, in course of time, so strictly does 
she watch over and restrain herself, she attains 
to a bearing which makes this weakness of her 
character or temperament seem almost incredible. 

* She said to me slowly,' writes the Prince 
de Ligne, 'that she had been extremely quick- 
tempered, which one could scarcely believe. . . . 
Her three bows a la Russe are made always 
in the same way in entering a room, one to 
the left, one to the right, and one in the middle. 
Everything in her was measured, methodical. 
. . . She loves to repeat * J'ai de l'imperturba- 
biliteV taking a quarter of an hour to say the word.' 

Senac de Meilhan, who visited Russia in 
1750, confirms these characteristics. In one of 
his letters, dated from St. Petersburg, he 
speaks of the inexpressible impression of tran- 
quillity and serenity with which the appearance 
of Catherine before the court is always accom- 
panied. She does not affect the rigidity of a 
statue. She looks round her with eyes that 
seem to see everything. She speaks slowly, 



232 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

not as if seeking for words, but as if choosing 
quietly those that suit her. 

Nevertheless, to the end of her life, Catherine 
kept to her habit of pinning her serviette under 
her chin on sitting down to table. * She could 
not otherwise,' as she frankly avows, 'eat an 
egg, without dropping half of it on her collerette.' 

IV 

Her temperament is particularly lively, san- 
guine, and impetuous. This appears, we know 
well, in more than one aspect of her private life. 
To this we shall have to return. Let us say here 
that the shamelessness of her morals, which it 
would be idle to try to attenuate, does not seem 
to have its root in any constitutional vice. She 
is neither hysterical nor tainted with nympho- 
mania. It is a sensual woman who, being Empress, 
gives free course to her senses, imperially. What 
she does in this order of things is done as she 
does everything else, quietly, imperturbably— we 
might almost say methodically. She gives way 
to no bewilderments of imagination, to no dis- 
order of nerves. Love with her is but the natural 
function of a physical and moral organism en- 
dowed with exceptional energy, and it has the 
same imperious character, the same lasting power, 
as the other phenomena of her life. She is still 
amorous at sixty-seven ! 

Her other tastes are those of a person well- 
balanced, both mentally and physically. She loves 
the arts, and the society of intelligent and learned 
people. She loves nature. Gardening, 'planto- 
mania'as she calls it, is one of her favourite occupa- 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER- TEMPERAMENT 233 

tions. Note that though she adores flowers, she 
cannot endure too strong perfumes, that of musk in 
particular. Every day, at a fixed hour, which a bell 
announces to the winged population, she appears at 
a window of the palace and throws out crumbs to 
the thousands of birds that are accustomed to come 
to her to be fed. Elizabeth used to feed frogs, 
which were expressly kept in the park : one sees 
the difference, the morbid, extravagant note. In 
Catherine there is nothing of the kind. She likes 
birds, dogs, who play a considerable part in her 
private life, horses too ; she likes animals in 
general, but she prefers those which are more 
generally liked. All that is very simple, very 
natural, very normal 

Elizabeth led an irregular life, turning night 
into day, never having a fixed hour for anything. 
Catherine is regularity itself ; always early to bed, 
up with the dawn, fitting in her occupations as 
well as her pleasures with a programme that she 
has made out beforehand, and that she carries out 
without deviation. Elizabeth used to get drunk ; 
Catherine is sober, eating little, only drinking a 
mouthful of wine at her principal meal, never 
taking supper. In public and in private, save for 
the mysteries of the alcove, she is perfectly correct 
in demeanour, never allowing an impropriety in 
conversation. And in this there is no hypocrisy, 
for she shows, and indeed shows off, her lovers. 

In order to find something unnatural, abnor- 
mal, in her, some have laid emphasis on her sup- 
posed indifference to family feeling. The point 
is susceptible of controversy. She despised and 
detested her husband, if she did not kill him or 
let him be killed ; and she was not tender towards 
16 



234 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



her son, if she did not think of disinheriting him. 
Still it must be remembered what this husband 
and this son really were, both to her and to 
Russia. She never saw again her only brother, 
never having allowed him to come and see her, 
though she only survived him by three years. 
That was a matter of policy. She found that 
there were Germans enough in Russia, herself 
among the number. With her, it is certain, the 
head always ruled the heart, and, though German, 
she was by no means sentimental. But she was, 
as we shall see, a delightful grandmother, and she 
was passionately fond of children. 

Her shameless sensuality thus seems an iso- 
lated phenomenon, without connection with any 
other in her temperament. Perhaps this is only 
in appearance ; perhaps we should seek a certain 
connection, if not the relation of cause to effect, 
between this side of her nature and another that 
we are about to look into, that is to say, the 
intellectual culture of one who loved to call 
herself the pupil of Voltaire. If, indeed, there 
is method in this madness of the senses, which 
she does not lose even in middle age, there 
is also a certain lofty cynicism, a certain tran- 
quil assurance, which a physiological peculiarity, 
anomaly if you will, is not sufficient to explain. 
The philosophical spirit of the eighteenth century 
has passed over it, and not only the spirit of the 
age of Brantome. 

v 

Catherine is a great temperament, not a great 
intellect. She herself did not pretend to 'a 
creative mind.' Nevertheless she prides herself 



APPEARANCE-CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 235 

on her originality. ' All my life,' she writes to 
Mme. de Bielke, ' I never could tolerate imita- 
tion, and, to put it bluntly, I am as much of an 
original as the most determined Englishman.' 
But it is in her tastes, her habits, her modes 
of action, that is to say in her temperament rather 
than in her mind, that we must look for this 
personal note. There is not a single new idea in 
her Instruction for the laws, written at the age of 
thirty-six, in the full vigour of her intellectual 
faculties. It is the second-rate work of a student 
of rhetoric, who has been given as a task the 
analysis of Montesquieu and Beccaria, and who 
has done creditably, but without showing any 
great talent. This work, nevertheless, gives her 
enormous trouble. At the end of March 1765 
she has been toiling at it for two months, at the 
rate of three hours a day. Her best hours, in 
the morning, are given up to this work. By the 
middle of June she has covered sixty-four pages, 
and she feels that she has made a considerable 
effort. She is quite worn out. ' I have emptied 
my sack,' she writes, 'and, after this, I shall not 
write another word for the rest of my life/ We 
have all known these vows, and, too, this im- 
pression of weariness at the end of the first long 
effort. But having regard to the actual result, 
this author's trouble is almost laughable. The 
sack, too, that she had emptied, or thought she 
had emptied, was easy to replace, for it was not 
hers. She found plenty more in turn. 

Had she then nothing of her own? Yes, much 
good sense, to begin with, joined, singularly 
enough, to a great wealth of imagination. She 
passed the thirty-four years of her reign in build- 



236 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

ing castles in the air, magnificent buildings, 
founded on nothing, and evaporating in space at 
the least breath. But the day came when one 
stone, a single stone, was placed in the soil, as if 
by miracle, at the angle of the fantastic edifice. 
It was Catherine who had planted it there. The 
Russian people, this good people which has not 
yet come to realise itself, nor to dispute with 
those who govern it, did the rest. It brought its 
sweat and blood, and, like the Egyptian colossi, 
where the effort of thousands of unknown 
existences is superposed, the edifice rose and 
assumed tangible form. The conquest of the 
Taurida was thus accomplished. This was one 
of Catherine's dreams, put in action and trans- 
lated into a novel of adventures by Patiomkine. 
But the corner-stone appeared suddenly in a 
port of the Black Sea, and the Crimea of to-day 
was then created. 

Nevertheless Catherine fascinated, and even 
dazzled, by her qualities of mind the most part 
of those to whom she gave the chance of judg- 
ing ; men of a superior order of intellect, such 
as Diderot, for example. It was an effect of 
mirage, it seems to us, the artificial product of 
a kind of fascination in which there were many 
elements ; a superior force of will, the supreme art 
of mise en scene that we know already, and a third 
element, surprising, unlooked for, well-nigh in- 
credible in this German of the North— a heat 
and fire which are extraordinary, overpowering, 
which seem as if they must be Southern by 
birth. Judging by the reports of her way of 
talking, the flow and colour of words which 
crowd from her lips, the absolute volubility which 



APPEARANCE— CHAR A CTER— TEMPERAMENT 237 

she manifests at every turn, Catherine is a true 
Southern. 'She loved to chatter,' she said, and 
Grimm despaired of being able to preserve for 
posterity any idea of what her conversation was. 

* One must have seen, at those moments, this 
singular head, made up of genius and of grace, 
to form an idea of the fire that swayed her, the 
shafts that she let fly, the sallies that pressed, 
jostling, so to speak, and tumbling on one 
another, like the limpid waters of a natural 
waterfall. Had it only been in my power to 
take down literally these conversations, the 
world would have possessed a precious and 
perhaps unique fragment of the history of the 
human mind. The imagination and the judgment 
were equally impressed by this profound and rapid 
sweep of vision, whose immense reach passed like 
a flash. And how could one seize, on the sudden 
wing, all these fine, fugitive traits of light ? ' 

What Grimm dared not attempt, Catherine 
has essayed to do herself. In 1780, the day 
after a conversation which had astonished Count 
Ivan Tchernichef, she sent him, at his request, 
a literal report of it. This fragment has been 
preserved, and it is curious. Must we confess 
that it is somewhat deceptive? It reminds us of 
an observation that an old savant, who had reached 
the extreme limits of human existence, and who 
was an enfant terrible on occasion, made before 
us one day to a politician afflicted with the mania 
of publishing, in the least official of quarters, 
speeches that the House had not always heard: 
' Excuse me, sir, I see at every moment, in what 
you have given me to read, the words : Sen- 
sation, prolonged applause, uproar. But though 



238 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

I have looked for it, I can see nothing extra- 
ordinary in all you say.' 

It is a somewhat similar impression that we 
receive on reading the famous report. We look 
in vain for the brilliant sayings, the sallies of wit, 
the sparks of genius, of which Grimm tells us. 

To begin with, there is a quotation from the 
Plaideurs of Racine, ' Ma foi, sur l'avenir bien 
fou qui se fiera,' serving as motto to flights of 
political prophesying, in which ' the eagle eye 9 
is nowhere to be seen. 

* I predict that France, Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia will clash together for a time, will do 
one another grievous hurt, and aid one another 
in turn, and will all four arrive at the highest 
pitch of glory.' 

This resembles the deliverance of an extra- 
lucid somnambulist, unless one chooses to see 
in it a vision of the wars of Europe. But did 
Catherine foresee the Revolution, as some have 
alleged ? We do not see it, unless indeed it 
be in this phrase : 1 Buffon has predicted that 
one day a comet will hook on to our globe and 
carry it with it. I fancy that its course will be 
from west to east.' But this is the veriest style 
of fortune-telling, and Mile. Lenormand would 
not have expressed it better. The mistakes 
of the King of France could not but strike 
the penetrating mind of the Czarina. Two years 
before she said to Count Tchernichef : ' I do 
not like to see Marie-Antoinette laugh so much, 
and laugh at everything. It is true that she is 
a woman, and very much a woman ; I am too, 
somewhat ; in her place and her circumstances I 
should be afraid that some one would say : He 



APPEARANCE— CHARACTER— TEMPERAMENT 239 

who laughs last laughs best' The saying is 
expressive, and has a wide bearing. In this 
she saw true, thanks to her good sense and to 
her sense of the part of government, which none 
of her rivals in modern history possessed in the 
same degree. With talents of a superior order 
— and both Frederick and Napoleon were pro- 
bably her inferiors in this respect— Catherine had 
more flexibility, was more fruitful in resources, 
had a more delicate sense of touch. She was an 
incomparable virtuoso in the art of ruling. 

But to return to the report of her conversa- 
tion, or rather of her monologue. She hits on 
an unhappy phrase in reference to England : 
■ England ! Fanaticism built it, fanaticism sup- 
ports it, fanaticism will destroy it.' We ask 
ourselves what this may mean, and what could 
have suggested it. It is really nothing but an 
actuality of the moment, in the manner of our 
present day journalists. We are in 1780, and 
London has just been the scene of a popular 
movement against the Catholics, provoked by the 
ambitious and unscrupulous Lord Gordon. To 
the traditional cry of \ No Popery ! ' a band of 
twenty thousand fanatics has marched upon 
Westminster, and the members of Parliament 
have themselves been somewhat violently treated. 
In this passing crisis Catherine discovers an 
historic law. 

Then follow some philosophical considerations : 
* One may have wit, talent, morals, virtue, 
reason, as much as you will ; but not glory, 
success, fortune, and especially favour.' 

That is not very new, nor very profound, nor 
even very true. For talented and virtuous 



240 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



people have had to suffer on account of their 
talent and their virtue as often, or oftener, than 
rich people on account of their money-bags. 
Here is what seems to be a less commonplace 
turn of thought : — 

* To gain a victory is nothing ; land is some- 
thing ; money everything. The rich have an 
astonishing power over humankind, since kings 
themselves end by respecting those who have 
made money/ 

This reflection might have been inspired in 
an intelligence trained in the school of modern 
materialism by the enormous fortunes of which 
this century has seen the accumulation. Yet 
the house of Rothschild was not yet born. But 
was not the father of Alexander of Macedon 
disturbed by just such thoughts ? 

As for the piece as a whole, we can see 
nothing astonishing about it except the import- 
ance that Catherine herself, and not Tchernichef 
alone, seems to have attached to it. It is true 
that one side, and no doubt the most attractive, 
of the conversation is lost for us. The words 
are there ; but the accent, the impetuous flow 
of speech, the well-modulated voice, had not 
these a success of their own, the true orator's 
success ? 

* In your words, divine Princess, there is 
neither method nor order. There is that sove- 
reign and incomprehensible spirit with which you 
are dowered.' Thus did Field- Marshal Munich 
express himself in a letter addressed to the 
Empress a few months after her accession. 
The eloquence of Catherine had, for him also, 
its enigmatic side. 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 241 



CHAPTER II 

IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 
I 

With the temperament that we have seen, 
Catherine could not well be a woman with prin- 
ciples, at least immutable principles, nor with 
formulated ideas. Her fixed ideas, which she 
has often had, were so only for the moment ; 
they were comets, not the guiding stars of 
her life. 

One point, however, on which she never varies, 
is the national character, essentially Russian, that 
she impresses on her government, and that she 
seeks to extend to the entire development, politi- 
cal, intellectual, and moral, of the Slavonic people, 
over whose destinies she, a German princess, 
has been called to preside. Not only the admi- 
nistrative and legislative acts of her reign, 
but her slightest sayings and doings bear the 
trace of this constant preoccupation. Falconet 
had hard work not to invest Peter I. with the 
national Russian costume that the Czar was so 
emphatic in forbidding throughout his empire. 
Catherine would have had this trait in the history 
of the great reformer forgotten. She would have 
imposed, not merely upon the present, but upon 
the past, of her adopted country, a whole host 
of things contrary to the fact, but conformable 
to the idea that it had pleased her to give her- 
self and others in regard to this land of vast 
horizons, so tempting to flights of fancy. She 



242 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

would have rewritten in her own way the whole 
history of the old Muscovite fatherland. In 1790 
Senac de Meilhan offered himself as historio- 
grapher of the empire : she hesitated to accept 
the offer. Would he be willing to lay aside the 
prejudices ' that most strangers have against 
Russia ' ? — to the point of believing, for example, 
4 that before Peter the Great the empire had 
neither laws nor administration.' Now, ' it is 
true that the troubles which followed on the 
death of the Czar Ivan Vassilevitch had put 
back Russia from forty to fifty years, but before 
this time it was on the level of the rest of 
Europe . . . the Grand Dukes of Russia took 
a prominent part in the affairs of Europe, and 
were allied and connected with all the sovereip-n 

o 

houses of our hemisphere.' 

After this the poor Senac despaired of be- 
ing able to cope with his task. But here too 
Catherine was convinced. She wrote to Grimm : 
' No history furnishes better or greater men than 
ours. I am passionately fond of this history.' 
She meant, besides, to have a good space given 
to her own reign, ' for we live in an age in which, 
far from hiding the lustre of things and actions, 
it is essential to sustain people's minds.' Would 
Senac consent to be ' directed ' in this respect ? 

Here again we observe a trace of the huge 
proportions which the vast empire, so strangely 
become her own property, had little by little 
attained in the Czarina's mind ; and we see one 
fixed star the more in her firmament. This 
hyperbolic idea of grandeur, applied to all the 
constituent elements of the national inheritance, 
to the past as to the present of Russia, to its 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



243 



extent as to its population, to its material power 
as to its moral worth, to its preponderance in the 
Slavonic world as to its European position, is 
one of those which never left Catherine, and 
never lost its hold upon her. She seems dazzled, 
hallucinated, and as if hypnotised before this 
collossal conception. High as was the opinion 
that she had, and that she wished others to have 
of herself, of the merits of her government, and 
of the great events which marked it, she did 
not hesitate to make herself small by comparison : 
'All that I can do for Russia is but a drop of 
water in the sea.' 

Russia is the sea, the ocean with its unsounded 
depths, its borders lost to sight in the immensity 
of space. It is for that that she has been willing 
to submerge in it her own past, and the very 
remembrance of her German fatherland. Never- 
theless, it is she who writes, in 1782, complaining 
to Grimm of the conduct of the Sultan Abdul- 
Hamid : ' Das ist unmoglich dass ich mir sollte 
auf die Nase spielen lassen. You know that a 
German will never suffer that.' But her mind 
is essentially mobile, and, as she confesses, she 
does not always know what she wants, or even 
what she says, especially when she chats with 
her confidant, pen in hand, in her moments of 
most complete unbending, after the fatigues of 
her formidable task. But she has conscientiously 
applied to herself her Russophilist programme, 
and she has become Russian from head to foot, 
not only on the surface and by an artifice, but 
sincerely and profoundly, in her mind and flesh, 
in her most formal language, her most familiar 
motion, her most private thought. The following 



244 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



lines were probably seen by no one till after her 
death. 

* Never has the universe produced a creature 
more manly, more solid, more frank, more human, 
more benevolent, more generous, more obliging, 
than the Scythian (Scythian and Russian are 
synonymous in her eyes). No man equals him 
in regularity of features, in beauty of face, in fine- 
ness of complexion, build, and stature ; having 
for the most part well-nourished, or nervous and 
muscular, limbs, a thick beard, long and bushy 
hair ; naturally averse to all ruse and artifice, to 
which his probity and uprightness are utterly 
alien. There is not on the earth a horse-soldier 
or foot-soldier, or sailor, or manager to equal 
him. No one is tenderer to his children and 
his kinsmen. He has an inborn deference for his 
parents and superiors. He is prompt and exact 
in obedience, always faithful.' 

This is quite a rhapsody! And no doubt 
there is something in it of personal recollection, 
too flatteringly recalled. In course of time, 
however, something more immaterial, purer and 
more profound, found its way into the love of 
Russia that the love of certain Russians gave 
to Catherine. 

We must not forget, among the ideas to which 
she remained faithful, what has been called the 
great idea of her reign : the Greek project. We 
shall see that she has had it in view from 1 762, 
and that she still has it in view on the eve of 
her death. It was a beautiful dream, beautiful 
and fantastic. The resurrection of Greece, the 
enfranchisement of the Yougo- Slavs, mingled 
with other equally dazzling, but less disinterested 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



245 



visions : Constantinople opening its gates to 
Christianity, represented by a Russian army ; 
the crescent replaced on the dome of St. Sophia 
by the double Greek cross, crowned by the two- 
headed imperial eagle. It is on this account 
that the second son of Paul is named Constantine, 
and not Peter or Ivan ; it is on this account 
that there is a Greek nurse and a Greek servant, 
who was afterwards to become an important per- 
sonage, Count Kourouta. There was also a corps 
of Greek cadets, a Greek district-government at 
Kherson, newly founded, and under the charge of 
Eugene, a Bulgarian. Medals were struck, on which 
were seen symbolic and suggestive images : on 
one side the Empress, on the other Constantinople 
in flames, a minaret crumbling into the sea, and 
the cross resplendent in the clouds. The journal 
of Chrapowicki is not less edifying on the subject. 
On August 17, 1787, he considers a secret pro- 
ject of Patiomkine for the capture of Bakou and 
Derbent. Capital for that could be made out of 
the troubles in Persia, and, by means of other 
connections, a province could be formed to be 
called Albania, which would serve as provisional 
appointment for the Grand Duke Constantine. 
On April 21, 1788, Moldavia and Wallachia 
are discussed : these provinces should remain 
independent, in order to serve as nucleus to 
the future ' Dacia,' that is to say, the future 
monarchy of Greece. On October 9, 1789, the 
is are dotted. The Greeks need to be s stirred 
up': Constantine may take charge of that. He 
has a future before him. In thirty years he will 
have got from Sebastopol to Constantinople. 



246 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



II 

In 1769 the cause of liberty has no more 
enthusiastic defender in Europe than the Empress 
of Russia. 

4 To the brave Corsicans, defenders of liberty 
and of their country, and, in particular, to General 
Paoli : Gentlemen ! All Europe has for many 
years seen you oppose oppression, defend and 
redeem the country from an unjust usurpation, 
and fight for liberty. It is the duty of every 
human creature to aid and support all who mani- 
fest sentiments so noble, so great, and so 
natural.' 

The letter is from the hand of Catherine, and 
is signed 1 Your sincere friends, the inhabitants of 
the North Pole (sic).' A sum of money is added, 
which passes in the eyes of the brave Corsicans 
as the result of a subscription. This, doubtless, 
is in order to spare them the humiliation of being 
subventioned by an absolute monarch, and also 
to make them believe that there is, in the neigh- 
bourhood of the ' North Pole/ a respectable 
number of people capable of sympathising with 
the cause they defend. 

In 1 78 1 Catherine comes forward on behalf of 
Necker. His famous Compte rendu, which is 
practically an act of accusation against the ad- 
ministration of royal finances, that is to say 
against royalty itself, enchants and delights 
her. She does not doubt that heaven has 
destined the able Genevese for the salvation 
of France. 

Certainly she has not much love, just then, 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



247 



either for France or for the turn that things are 
taking there ; but in her hostile feelings the court 
holds as large, if not larger, a place than the 
people, and the old rdgime foundering under the 
rising flood of social claims has no part in her 
favour. This is the impression we receive from 
her correspondence with her son and her daughter- 
in-law, during the visit of their Imperial High- 
nesses, in 1782, to Paris. Here is a specimen. 
It is Catherine who writes : — 

' May God bless her most Christian Majesty, 
her shows, her balls and her plays, her rouge 
and her beards, well or ill adjusted. I am not 
sorry that this annoys you and makes you anxious 
to return. But, how is it that, with its passion 
for the play, Paris is no better off than we ? I 
know the reason ; it is because every one leaves 
the good show for the bad ; that in tragedy they 
have nothing but what is atrocious ; that plays are 
written by those who know neither how to make 
comedies for laughter nor tragedies for tears ; 
that comedy, instead of bringing laughter, brings 
tears; that nothing is in its proper place; that 
colours even have only abject and indecent 
names. All that encourages no sort of talent, 
but spoils it.' 

A frivolous and corrupt court, in the midst of 
a society which its evil example has brought to 
the verge of a fatal precipice, that is the idea 
Catherine seems to hold, at this time, in regard to 
the country of her * dear master,' who himself has 
given colour to her opinions, in denying at every 
opportunity his kinship with the pitiable 'Vandals.' 
Her dominant idea, however, is a feeling of in- 
difference in regard to men and things there. 



248 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

For a long time, up to the very verge of the 
revolutionary crisis, the events and agitations, in 
this far country, seem to her without any general 
importance ; she does not perceive their bearing. 
Nor, whatever may have been said to the con- 
trary, does she see the approach of the tempest. 
On April 19, 1788, she writes to Grimm: 'I do 
not share the belief of those who imagine that we 
are on the eve of a great revolution.' Hearing, 
in the course of her tour through the Crimea, of 
the resolution of Louis XVI. to convoke an 
'Assembly of Notables/ she sees in it only an 
imitation of her own legislative commission. She 
invites Lafayette to visit her at Kief. To open 
her eyes on what is being prepared by the 
Lafayettes, it needs the thunderclap of the 
taking of the Bastille. Then she begins to under- 
stand what is in the air, and the Gazette de St.- 
Pdtersbourg, which had been silent on the Assembly 
of the States and the Tennis-court Oath, breaks 
out in indignant protestations : * Our hand shakes 
with horror,' etc. The rest of the article may 
be imagined. Soon the constituents are com- 
pared by the officious journal to ' a drunken 
mob,' as their successors are to be compared to 
' cannibals.' 

From this moment Catherine's ideas underwent 
a rapid change, and it is curious to follow, in her 
correspondence and her confidential conversation, 
the progress of this evolution. In June 1790 
Grimm, who has not yet had time to perceive the 
change which is coming over the Empress's mind, 
asks for her portrait on behalf of Bailly, offering 
in exchange that of the revolutionary hero of the 
day. Catherine replies— 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



249 



■ Listen : I cannot accede to your request, and 
it is as little suitable for the mayor who has dis- 
monarchised France to have the portrait of the 
most aristocratic Empress in Europe, as it would 
be for her to send it to the dismonarchising 
mayor ; it would be to place both the dis- 
monarchising mayor and the aristocratissime 
Empress in contradiction with themselves and 
their functions, past, present, and future.' 

And two days after — - 

' I repeat that you are not to give to the dis- 
monarchising mayor the portrait of the greatest 
aristocrat in Europe ; I would have nothing to 
do with Jean Marcel, who will be strung up a la 
lanterne some day soon.' 

Here is a complete throwing overboard of 
republicanism. It is not so with regard to philo- 
sophy, to which the Empress still clings. She 
endeavours to find out how far it is responsible 
for the present events — 

TO GRIMM. 

'June 25, 1790. 

* The National Assembly should burn all the best 
French authors, and all that has carried their language 
over Europe, for all that declares against the abominable 
mess that they have made. ... As for the people and 
its opinion, that is of no great consequence ! ' 

It is this last phrase especially which shows the 
antagonism, now only capable of increase, be- 
tween the spirit of Catherine and of the Revolu- 
tion. It is the part, more and more prominent, 
played by the people in the events of which Paris 
has become the theatre that shocks and offends 
the sovereign. There was a time when, in this 
17 



250 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

respect also, she had other ideas. At the outset 
of her reign, in gathering together her legislative 
commission, she did nothing less, in reality, than 
summon it from the mass of her subjects. But it 
is then, too, that, coming for the first time in 
contact with the popular element, she began little 
by little to change her mind in regard to it. 
Perhaps she was unwise in generalising from her 
impressions, but she had no other points of 
comparison. She could but form her opinion on 
what was before her eyes, and this opinion 
became a profound contempt. In 1787, as her 
secretary, Chrapowicki, points out to her the enor- 
mous number of peasants who crowd to see her 
and pay homage to her in a certain country town, 
she replies with a shrug of the shoulders : ' They 
would come just the same to see a bear.' It is 
the same spirit to which she gives utterance two 
years after, when, referring to the composition of 
the political clubs in France, she says ; ' How can 
shoemakers have anything to do with affairs ? A 
shoemaker only knows how to make shoes.' 

Soon philosophy in turn is abandoned. Cathe- 
rine still speaks with respect of 'good French 
authors,' but she makes her choice, and, Voltaire 
excepted, she throws overboard all those of the 
eighteenth century. Diderot, d'Alembert, and 
Montesquieu himself, are sacrificed at one blow — ■ 

TO GRIMM. 

* Sept. 12, 1790. 

' I must tell you the truth, the tone with you now is 
that of mere intemperance ; this is not the tone to 
make France illustrious. . . . What will the French do 
with their best writers, who almost all lived under Louis 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



251 



XIV.} All — Voltaire himself — are royalists; they 
preach order and tranquillity, and all that is opposed 
to the system of this hydra with twelve hundred 
heads. 5 

The National Assembly is referred to more and 
more bitterly. On August 7th, 1 790, Chrapowicki 
notes in his journal : ' Said in presence of her 
Majesty, speaking of France : "It is a meta- 
physical country ; every member of the assembly 
is a king, and every citizen is an animal." Re- 
ceived with approbation.' At the same time 
Catherine writes to Grimm — 

* Sept. 27, 1790. 

' In bed I reflected over things, and, among others, I 
thought that one reason why the Mathieu de Mont- 
morencys, the Noailles, etc., are so ill-taught and so 
base in spirit that they are among the first promoters 
of the decree abolishing the nobility ... is that the 
schools of the Jesuits have been abolished among you : 
whatever you may say, those scamps looked well after 
the morals and tastes of the young people, and what- 
ever is best in France came out of their schools.' 

'Jan. 13, 1 79 1. 

'One never knows if you are living in the midst of 
the murders, carnage, and uproar of the den of thieves 
who have seized upon the government of France, and 
who will soon turn it into Gaul as it was in the time of 
Caesar. But Caesar put them down ! When will this 
Caesar come ? Oh, come he will, you need not doubt. 

1 May 23, 1 791. 

1 The best of possible constitutions is worth nothing 
when it makes more people unhappy than happy, when 
brave and honest folk have to drudge, and only the 
rogues are in clover, because their pockets are filled, 
and nobody punishes them.' 

Observe, however, with what moderation 



252 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Catherine is still capable, at this period, of dis- 
cussing one of the revolutionary principles most 
repugnant to her. Her letter of June 30th, 1791, 
to the Prince de Ligne may be given in evi- 
dence— 

4 1 think that the Academies ought to offer a 
first prize for the question : What do honour 
and worth, synonyms dear to heroic ears, become 
in the mind of an active citizen under a jealous 
and suspicious government, which proscribes all 
distinction, while nature itself has given to the 
intelligent man a pre-eminence over the fool, and 
courage is founded on the sentiment of the force 
of the body or of the head ? Second prize for the 
question : Are honour and worth really needful ? 
And if so, surely one should not restrain the 
desire of emulation, and clog it with an insup- 
portable enemy, equality.* 

But soon she is carried away by more violent 
feelings — 

' Sept. 1, 1791. 

* If the FYench Revolution takes in Europe, there 
will come another Gengis or Tamerlane to restore it to 
reason : that is what I prophesy, and be sure it will 
come true, but it will not be in my time, nor, I hope, in 
that of M. Alexandre/ 

When the news of the death of Louis XVI. 
reaches her, Catherine, as we have mentioned, is 
cut to the heart ; she betakes herself to bed, in a 
sort of fever, and she cries to her confidant— 

'Feb. 1, 1793. 

'The very name of France should be exterminated ! 
Equality is a monster. It would fain be king !' 

This time the holocaust is complete. Voltaire 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



253 



is sacrificed with the rest. And in the words 
and writing of the Empress there are almost 
savage calls to vengeance, the most extravagant 
projects of repression — 

'Feb. 15, 1794. 

' I propose that all the Protestant powers should 
embrace the Greek religion, to save themselves from 
the irreligious, immoral, anarchical, abominable, and 
diabolical plague, enemy of God and of thrones ; it is 
the sole apostolic and truly Christian religion — an oak 
with wide-spreading roots.' 

Thus, after Caesar, she calls for Tamerlane 
and his exterminating sword ; after the Jesuits, a 
long-bearded pope, who will bring the lost peoples 
into the safe fold of the Orthodox Church. Is 
the Caesar for whom she calls, he whom France 
and Europe have indeed felt? Yes and no. 
This Caesar she did not at first perceive. In 
1 79 1 she is evidently dreaming of some officer of 
justice coming from without — some Brunswick. 
It is only later on that her point of view changes, 
becomes clearer, and then, it must be admitted, 
she comes very near the truth — touches it almost. 
Catherine sees Napoleon before he has ap- 
peared ; she points to him, describes his charac- 
teristics— 

* If France is to come out of this alive,' she 
writes, February 11, 1794, 'she will be more 
vigorous than ever; she will be meek and 
obedient as a lamb ; but it will need a man both 
great and bold, a man above his contemporaries, 
and perhaps above the age. Is he born? Is he 
not ? Will he come ? All depends on that. If 
he is found, he will arrest the last downfall, and 



254 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

that will be arrested whenever he is found, in 
France or elsewhere/ 

The men of the Revolution who preceded 
Napoleon all shared in the indignation of the 
Empress, and in the severity of her judgments. 
Lafayette is now called ' the big booby/ Mira- 
beau is at first better treated. The praises 
showered on his tardy loyalism in the Gazette de 
St.-Pdtersbourg show that the relations of the 
tribune with the Russian Legation at Paris were 
not unknown, nor yet the services that were 
looked for from him. But, after his death, 
Catherine's personal opinion is emphatically ex- 
pressed in her letters to Grimm — 

■ Mirabeau was the colossus or monster of our 
time ; in any other he would have been avoided, 
detected, imprisoned, hanged, or broken on the 
wheel/ 

And three days afterwards — * 
* I do not like the honours paid to Mirabeau, 
and I do not understand the why or wherefore, 
unless it be to encourage wickedness and all the 
vices. Mirabeau merits the esteem of Sodom 
and Gomorrha/ 

She retracts, too, her admiration for Necker — ■ 
' I agree with the views of M. F. on Malet du 
Pan and on that bad and foolish Necker : to me 
they are not merely hateful, but mere bores and 
chatterboxes/ 

She is not more tender towards the Duke of 
Orleans— 

' I hope that no Bourbon will ever again bear 
the name of Orleans, after the horror that I feel 
towards the last who bore it/ 

As for the Abbe Sieges, she settles his account 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



255 



at once : 1 1 subscribe to the hanging of the Abbe 
Sieges.' 

It is but just to say that the Revolutionaries 
give her back her own. Volney returns the gold 
medal which the Empress has formerly bestowed 
on him. Sylvain Marechal, in his Jugement 
Dernier des Rois y depicts the Empress in gro- 
tesque hand-to-hand conflict with the Pope, who 
throws his tiara at her head, after which she is 
swallowed up with all her accomplices by a 
volcano that opens under her feet. The Moni- 
teur is not always amiable towards her. 

Nevertheless, it must be noted that, for a long 
time, Catherine, while severely condemning the 
revolutionary movement, does not, in Russia or 
elsewhere, set on foot against it any act of direct 
repression. She remains a passive, and in some 
sort disinterested, spectator of passing events. 
Her whole attitude seems to say that all these 
things have no concern for her ; that, whatever 
may happen, she has nothing to fear for herself 
or for the empire. At bottom, she is probably 
convinced of it to the last. Only it happens that 
the combinations, or we might better say the 
improvisations, of her policy come to impose 
upon her convictions. The precise epoch when 
she decides to abandon her inaction sufficiently 
indicates her reasons for doing so : it is the 
moment when, having settled affairs with Turkey 
and Sweden, she judges the hour come to inter- 
fere in Poland, and to put her hand to the 
master-work of her reign. The French Revolu- 
tion then appears in her eyes as one of those 
propitious ' conjunctions ' which, with conjectures 
and circumstances, make up, for her, the whole 



256 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of politics. A dialogue with her secretary 
Chrapowicki, December 14, 1791, gives clear 
utterance to her view in this respect— 

' I ajn doing all I can to get the courts of 
Berlin and Vienna to concern themselves with 
French affairs.' 

■ They are not very active.' 

' No. The court of Berlin goes forward, but 
that of Vienna remains behind. They do not 
see my point. Am I wrong ? There are 
reasons that one cannot say openly. I wish 
them to become concerned in the French affairs 
in order to leave me elbow-room. I have many 
undertakings to be achieved. I would have 
them occupied so that they may leave my way 
clear.' 

And immediately Catherine sets the tocsin 
ringing. Up to the present she has been content 
to publish in Paris, through her minister Simo- 
line (in August 1790) a ukase commanding all 
her subjects to quit France, in order that more 
of them should not think to imitate the example 
of the young Count Alexander Strogonof, who, 
with his tutor, had joined a revolutionary club. 
But it had not occurred to her to interdict in her 
empire the incendiary publications coming from 
the banks of the Seine. Russia remained the sole 
country in Europe open to the circulation of the 
papers printed at Paris. One number of the Moni- 
tettr had been confiscated, because it enlarged 
somewhat too explicitly on the score of the Grand 
Duke and different personages of the court. 
From that day Catherine examined every number 
before authorising the distribution. She soon 
came across one where she herself, in her turn, 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



257 



was very hardly treated : she was described as 
'the Messalina of the North.' 'That concerns 
no one but myself,' she said proudly, and ordered 
its distribution. She tolerated the presence in 
St. Petersburg of the brother of Marat, who, 
while condemning the sanguinary furies of the 
other, did not conceal his republican views. 
Tutor in the house of Count Saltykof, he often 
comes to court with his pupil. It is only in 1792 
that he changes his name, and takes that of 
Boudri. Then, in truth, all around him changes : 
the Empress embarks in the anti-revolutionary 
campaign, at first without much enthusiasm, 
purely as a political manoeuvre, but more and 
more sincerely, and more and more passionately 
too, entering little by little into the part she has 
wished to play, and adopting as her own those 
ideas, sentiments, and instincts. Not content 
with attacking the revolutionary spirit in France 
and among the French, she pursues it in Russia, 
among the Russians themselves, which is really 
doing it more honour than it deserves. In regard 
to France she draws up, in 1792, a memorandum 
on the means of restoring the monarchy. It 
must be said that she does not manifest much 
common-sense in the project. She imagines 
that a force of ten thousand men, marching 
from end to end of the country, would suffice 
to the task. The cost would only be ,£500,000, 
which could be borrowed at Genoa. France, 
once handed back to its king, would return the 
amount. In regard to the Frenchmen imbued 
with the revolutionary spirit, who might be found 
in her dominions, she concocts the famous ukase 
of February 3, 1793, which constrains them 



258 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

under threat of immediate expulsion, to take an 
oath, of which the terms could not have been 
better imagined by a tribunal of inquisitors. 
Nor does she treat her subjects with more in- 
dulgence. To ward them off from the contagion 
of Jacobinism, she has recourse to means which 
she could not have sufficiently scorned at the 
commencement of her reign. Learning the choice 
that had been made of Prozorofski for the post 
of Governor of Moscow, Patiomkine writes to 
his imperial friend — 

' You have taken out of your arsenal the most 
ancient piece of artillery, which will certainly 
shoot in the direction in which you set it, for 
it has no motion of its own ; but beware lest it 
covers with blood for ever the name of your 
Majesty/ 

Prozorofski and his collaborators of Moscow 
and St. Petersburg, Arharof, Chechkofski, and 
Pestel, seemed, in the vigorous phrase of a 
Russian writer, ' to have risen into the light of 
day out of the torture-chambers of the Preo- 
brajenski Prikaz, already lost in the night of 
oblivion.' The trial of the Muscovite publicist, 
Novikof, condemned to fifteen years' imprison- 
ment for carrying on certain publications to 
which the Empress herself had formerly con- 
tributed, inaugurates a regime which justifies 
only too well the apprehensions of Patiom- 
kine. Catherine bears a grudge even against 
the high French cravats, covering the chin, 
which the dandies of St. Petersburg, Prince 
Borys Galitzine at their head, persist in wearing. 

We have endeavoured to present the notions 
inspired in Catherine by the great political and 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 259 

social upheaval of the end of the eighteenth 
century. These notions, it is evident, were 
narrow. Catherine could not see that, under all 
its deplorable errors, its culpable mistakes, the 
movement that she sought to repress contained 
something noble, lofty, and generous. Perhaps 
mere intelligence could not suffice for the com- 
prehension of these things. What was wanted 
was a certain personal elevation of sentiment, 
which Catherine never possessed. In trying 
to fight with the Revolution, she seized her 
chance of stifling the last vestiges of national 
independence on the banks of the Vistula : that 
was a matter of policy, and we may waive our 
judgment respecting it. But, the fight once 
at end in Poland, she was neither touched as a 
woman, nor impressed as a sovereign, by what 
made the glory of the expiring republic and its 
rehabilitation before posterity, by the last resist- 
ance of the vanquished, by the hero who personi- 
fied all its useless effort and its tragic destiny. 
Having summoned to St. Petersburg as a com- 
mon malefactor the vanquished soldier whom 
Michelet named ' the last Knight of the West 
and the first Citizen of the East,' whom Napoleon 
afterwards, at the height of his power, would 
have called to his aid, and who, in his Swiss 
shelter, was not to be dazzled by Napoleon, 
Catherine was not even curious to see him. 
She was content to abuse him. ' Kostiouchko ' — 
she did not even know how to spell his name — 
' has been brought here ; he is seen to be in 
every way a mere fool, quite beneath contempt. 
That is how she judges the man. ' Ma pauvre 
bete de Kostiouchka,' we read in another letter. 



26o 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



That is all the pity she can spare to the soldier 
who had fallen on the field of Macieiowice, the 
soldier in whose wounds the very soul of a great 
and noble people seemed to pass in one last cry 
of agony. 

Paul I., on reaching the throne, is said to have 
visited the ex-dictator in his prison, and, bending 
low before him, desired his pardon for his mother. 
Perhaps it is only a legend, and if so, so much 
the worse for the son of Catherine. At all events 
he set the prisoner free. Catherine had never 
thought of doing it. 

We once heard a German, who to-day occupies 
a high position at Vienna, declare that, being 
cosmopolitan in his tastes, he liked every nation- 
ality equally, except one, and that his own ; for, 
said he, along with many good qualities, it had 
one defect which he disliked above all others, it 
did not know how to be generous. 

In one sense, and from this point of view, just 
or not, Catherine remained German. She knew 
how to give, sometimes even how to pardon, but 
she was utterly inaccessible to certain sentiments 
that awaken naturally in all true hearts at the 
sight of weakness, suffering, and misfortune. 
Her ideas, as we know them, did not allow her 
to appreciate a certain type of simple grandeur. 
Her own simplicity was all made of show and 
convention. She was always playing a part 
when she showed herself under this aspect. She 
was willing to come down from Olympus, and 
she even took pleasure in it, but Olympus and 
all its train must be not far off. This is why, in 
1782, she refused the honour of receiving 
Franklin. ' I do not care for him,' she said. 



IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES 



She did not understand him. In 1795 she did 
not understand Kosciuszko. 

Is it true that she ever echoed the one among 
all the kings her contemporaries whom she pro- 
fessed the most to scorn, Louis XV., by repeating 
in her way the famous saying 'After me the 
deluge ' ? ' Poslie mienia hot trava nie rosti 
(After me the grasps may cease to grow) ' she is 
said to have said at the end of her life. It 
may well be. But to arrive at that point, she 
had need to abjure all that made the true 
glory of her reign, all to which she owes to- 
day that immortality of which she had the 
sublime thirst. 



BOOK II 



THE SOVEREIGN 
CHAPTER I 

THE ART OF RULING 
I 

5 1 love the fallow land,' wrote Catherine. * I 
have said it a thousand times, I am good for 
nothing out of Russia.' She thus proved the 
extreme lucidity of mind which permitted her, at 
least occasionally, to achieve this tour de force — 
a just appreciation of her own merits. Prince 
Henry of Prussia, sent to St. Petersburg, as an 
act of gratitude, by his brother, and there study- 
ing the sovereign with a German's resolution to 
get to the bottom of things, said one day to the 
Comte de Segur — 

' She (Catherine) is made to shine, she is 
immortalised during her lifetime ; otherwise, she 
would no doubt shine much less ; but in her 
country she is more intelligent than all those 
about her. It is easy to be great on such a 
throne.' 

Catherine did not fail to recognise one of the 
elements, and perhaps the most essential, of all 
her successes — -luck. * I have had nothing but 
good luck,' she said frankly enough. How 

262 



THE ART OF RULING 263 

indeed could she fail to see in the path of her 
life this indispensable factor of all prosperity? 
In 1770 she copied with her own hand a note 
from her improvised admiral, the commandant-in- 
chief of her naval forces in the Levant, Alexis 
Orlof, who, though he had never till then seen a 
ship or a sailor, knew enough at the end of a 
week to see that those with whom he had been 
told to conquer 'were not worth a pinch of salt' 
' My hair stands on end as I think of these 
things/ wrote Orlof. ' If we had to do with any 
but Turks, there would soon be an end of the 
fleet.' It is this fleet and its admiral that won 
the victory of Tchesme, shattering to atoms one 
of the finest fleets that Turkey had ever sent to 
sea. And in 1781 Catherine had already sent 
to Grimm the following rdsumd of the history of 
her reign, set forth by her new secretary and 
factotum, Besborodko, in the fantastic form of 
an inventory : — 



Governments instituted accord 

form, . 
Towns built, 
Treaties made, . 
Victories won, . 
Notable edicts, decreeing laws 
Edicts on behalf of the people 



ng to the new 



Total 



29 
144 

30 
78 
88 
123 



49- 



Four hundred and ninety-two active measures ! 
This astonishing piece of book-keeping, which 
betrays so naively all that there was of romantic, 
extravagant, childish, and very feminine, in the 
extraordinary genius that swayed Russia, and 
in some sort Europe, during thirty-four years, 



264 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



will no doubt make the reader smile. It corre- 
sponds, however, truly enough, to a sum-total 
of great things accomplished under her direct 
inspiration. 

And all that, was it not really due to her good 
luck? No indeed! Prince Henry of Prussia is 
too severe, Catherine too modest, and we have 
proved it already in speaking of the character of 
the great sovereign. With such a character one 
generally puts something more than chance and 
success in the balance of human destinies, over 
which one is called to preside. Catherine put 
there, to begin with, remarkable qualities of 
tenue. On July 3, 1764, the envoy of Frederick, 
Comte de Solms, wrote to his master — 

' On the part of the nation discontent and 
commotion, and much courage and firmness, at 
least in appearance, on the part of the Empress. 
She left here (Livonia) with an air of the greatest 
serenity and the most composed countenance, 
though, only two days before, there had been a 
mutiny in the army.' 

In another circumstance, the Prince de Ligne 
has noted — 

1 I was the only one to see that the last declara- 
tion on part of Turkey gave her only a quarter 
of an hour's reflection on the instability of human 
things, and the uncertainty of success and glory. 
She left the room with the same air of serenity 
that she had before her courier had gone/ 

Imposing on all the world, her friends as well 
as her enemies, by this attitude, Catherine can 
never be imposed upon by man or thing, and is 
never put out of countenance. In 1788, at the 
moment when the Swedish war broke out, there 



THE ART OF RULING 



265 



was a terrible lack of men, both in the army and 
in the government, but especially in the army. 
The Count of Anhalt presents himself, backed 
by his European reputation as a soldier, and 
offers his services. He is received with open arms. 
But he demands the rank of general-in-chief, and 
the supreme command. Catherine refuses. The 
German condottiere, surprised and indignant, de- 
clares that he will go and plant cabbages. ' Look 
after them well/ replies the Empress calmly. 

To increase the prestige that she already has, 
she does not disdain, from time to time, to have 
recourse to certain artifices, to certain effects of 
pose and arrangement. The Comte de Segur, 
on presenting his credentials, perceives ' some- 
thing theatrical ' in the behaviour of the Empress ; 
but this * something ' has such an effect upon the 
new-comer that he forgets the formal speech 
he has prepared beforehand, and is obliged 
to improvise another. One of his predecessors, 
yet more overcome, was unable, if we may 
believe Catherine, to get beyond the words, 
* The King my master/ which he repeated three 
times in succession. At the third repetition 
Catherine put an end to his misery by saying 
that she well knew the good-will of his master 
towards her. But she looked upon him, from 
that moment, as a fool, though he had the 
reputation in Paris of being a man of ready wit. 
She was indulgent only to her servants. It 
should be said that she had the right to be 
exigent in regard to those who had to speak 
before her, for, as the Prince de Ligne has 
observed, she had ' the art of listening/ 4 Such 
was her presence of mind/ he tells us, 'that 

18 



266 



CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



she seemed to be listening, even when she was 
thinking of something else.' The Prince de 
Ligne adds that nevertheless his own Empress, 
Maria Theresa, had 'more charm and magic/ 
Catherine manifests more authority. And she 
is careful to keep this side of hor sovereign 
prestige intact. One day, at an official dinner, 
having to express some discontent with the 
envoy of a foreign power, she makes one of those 
scenes of which Napoleon, later on, was so fond. 
In the midst of her tirade she hears her secre- 
tary, Chrapowicki, observing in an undertone 
how much it is to be regretted that the ma- 
touchka loses her temper in this way. She 
stops short, changes the conversation, behaves 
most amiably to the end of dinner ; but on 
rising from table she goes straight to the in- 
terrupter : * How dare you criticise in public what 
I say!' Her voice trembles with wrath, and 
the cup of coffee that she holds in her hand is 
in danger of falling to the ground. She puts 
down the cup without emptying it, and dismisses 
the unfortunate secretary. He thinks himself 
lost, and goes home expecting, at the very least, 
an order to set out for Siberia. A messenger 
comes to summon him before her Majesty. 
Catherine is still much excited, and overwhelms 
him with reproaches. He falls on his knees. 
* Come,' says the Empress, presenting him with a 
snuff-box set with diamonds, ' keep this, and when 
you have any observations to make in public on 
what I say or do, hold your tongue and take a pinch 
of snuff. The reminder may be of use to me.' 

With such command over herself, it is certain 
that she must exercise great command over 



THE ART OF RULING 



267 



others. It is indeed enormous, and all the traits 
of her character, of her temperament, and of her 
mind, serve to strengthen it. Her attitude 
impresses and fascinates, her energy, her fire, 
her youthful 'go,' her confidence, her audacity, 
her verve, her way of presenting things to others 
as they present themselves to her, that is to say, 
on the brightest side, her scorn of danger and 
difficulty, made up of a good half of ignorance 
and a good third of adventurous infatuation, her 
day-dreams, that sort of gorgeous hallucination 
in which she lives, and through which the sense 
of real things comes to her ; all that aids her in 
driving forward good and bad, wise and foolish 
alike, driving them forward as a horseman does 
his horse, now carressed and now flogged, 
spurred, shaken, and in some sort borne along by 
the effort of a will which increases tenfold the 
play of the muscles. Read the correspondence 
of the sovereign with her generals in the first 
Turkish war, Galitzine and Roumiantsof. Galit- 
zine is utterly incompetent, Roumiantsof is an 
accomplished soldier : she scarcely notices the 
difference. They must both march ; they must 
both beat the Turks ; it is impossible that they 
should not do that The Turks, what are they ? 
A herd, not an army. And then, 'Europe is ob- 
serving us/ One seems to hear Napoleon be- 
side the Pyramids. She thanks Roumiantsof for 
a Turkish poignard that he has sent her, but the 
capture of two ' hospodars ' would please her 
better. Nor is that enough : ' I beg you to be 
good enough to send me the Vizier himself, and, 
if God wills, his Highness the Sultan himself.' 
She will do all to render the victory easy : 1 She 



268 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



is setting fire to the Turkish empire at all four 
corners.' She sends word to her Minister of 
War, so that he may hold himself in readiness: 
' Monsieur, monsieur, I want plenty of cannons. 
. . . What am I to do if the cannons are dear ? ' 
One would take her for a fine lady ordering a 
further supply of dresses from a good maker. 
She adds : ' I have now an army at Cuban, an 
army acting against the Turks, an army against 
the brainless Poles ; I am about to collar the 
Swedes, and I have three more sotimatohi 
(brawls) in petto, that I dare not avow. Send 
me, if you can without attracting notice, a map 
of the Mediterranean and the Archipelago, and 
then pray God : God will arrange all.' 

But now, in September 1 77 1, one of the lieu- 
tenants of Roumiantsof, General Essen, is de- 
feated under the walls of Giourgi. It is nothing. 
4 Where there has been water, there is water 
still,' says the Russian proverb. The Russian 
proverb is right. 1 God favours us, but some- 
times he punishes us in order that we may not 
become too proud.' We must go ahead, and all 
will be well. Roumiantsof goes ahead, he leaves 
the right bank of the Danube. Victory ! cries 
Catherine. Quick, a pen, to send the good news 
to Voltaire, that the good news may spread 
through all Europe ! Alas ! in obeying his sove- 
reign, Roumiantsof has attempted too much. He 
is obliged to beat a retreat. He excuses himself 
on account of the state of the army. He ima- 
gines that he has enemies about the Empress 
who have purposely left him without enough food 
and ammunition. ' He does not know what he is 
saying ! ' Catherine has never heard that he had 



THE ART OF RULING 269 

enemies capable of doing him a mischief with 
her. That would be impossible. 'She has no 
people about her to whisper in her ear. . . . She 
will have none of such folk. . . . She judges 
those capable of doing well by what they 
do.' No doubt Roumiantsofs army is weak. 
Especially (a little cut in passing) as it must have 
suffered in the marches and counter-marches 
from one bank of the Danube to the other. But 
the Empress cannot forget the inscription en- 
graved on the obelisk commemorating the vic- 
tory won by Roumiantsof at Kagoul : it declares 
that he had only 17,000 men under his command. 
With his skill and energy he can renew this feat 
of arms ; provided always that he does not allow 
himself to be discouraged. Forward ! Forward ! 

11 

This correspondence discovers yet another 
superiority in Catherine : her skill in the manage- 
ment of men. In that she is simply marvellous. 
She employs all the resources of a trained diplo- 
matist, of a subtle psychologist, and of a woman 
who knows the art of fascination ; she employs 
them together or apart, she handles them with 
unequalled maestria. If it is true that she some- 
times takes her lovers for generals and statesmen, 
it is no less true that she treats on occasion her 
generals and statesmen as lovers. When the 
sovereign can do nothing, the Circe intervenes. 
If it avails nothing to command, to threaten, or to 
punish, she becomes coaxing and wheedling. To- 
wards the soldiers that she sends to death, bidding 
them only win for her victory, she has delicate 



2JO CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

attentions, flattering forethought, adorable little 
ways. After the battle of Kinburn (October 
1787), having to send quantities of ribbon to the 
heroes of the day, she arranges them with her 
own hands, in a basket of flowers, which she 
sends to Patiomkine. In September 1789 she 
sends to Prince von Nassau-Siegen, the new 
commander of the fleet, two warm dressing-gowns, 
'like those I sent last year to Marshal Prince 
Patiomkine before Otchakof, and which were of 
great service to him, as he himself assured me.' 
She flatters the literary ambitions of the Comte 
de Segur in absolutely insisting on putting his 
Coriolanus on the stage, and, in the course of the 
performance, she seizes both his hands to make 
him applaud himself. She even gives out that she 
knows the piece by heart, reciting aloud a dozen 
lines, where, it is true, she has caught a political 
allusion that she wishes to emphasise. 

Should fortune smile upon the efforts she has 
thus provoked and stimulated, she is profusely 
grateful : honours, pensions, gifts of money, of 
peasants, of land, rain upon the artisans of her 
glory. But she does not abandon those who have 
had the misfortune to be unlucky. In June 
1790 Prince von Nassau-Siegen is ingloriously 
defeated. She immediately writes to him — - 

* I hope you know me well enough to be sure 
that the gossip of the town, which has apparently 
reached you, will have no effect upon me. I know 
perfectly your zeal ; I do it justice ; I most sin- 
cerely share your mortification; I am distressed 
to hear that it has even affected your health. . . . 
Mon Dieu y who is there, then, that has not had 
great reverses, in his life ? Have not the greatest 



THE ART OF RULING 



271 



captains had their unlucky days. The late King 
of Prussia was really only great after a great 
reverse. . . . Remember, Prince, your successes in 
the South and North, rise above these untoward 
events, and go forward against the enemy, instead 
of asking me to appoint another commander for 
the fleet. I cannot do so now without giving 
occasion to your enemies. I lay too great store 
by the services you have rendered me not to 
support you, especially at a time when you are 
suffering, as you tell me, in body and mind.' 

She supports him, in fact, against all. As, in 
his endeavour to retire from the position, he 
appeals to the unfavourable state of affairs, she 
replies that it will be cruel of him towards her if 
he cannot remedy them. ' I have always liked to 
take an interest in the affairs of those who looked 
after mine.' And, as the clamour of court and 
town still continue against the defeated general, 
she writes to him again — 

' You acted upon a plan approved by me and 
upon my orders, and, coming from the supreme 
authority, they could not have been submitted to 
any further opinion, since, as long as I live, I 
shall never allow what I have ordered and 
approved of in regard to service to be called 
in question by a living soul ; nor does any one 
here attempt to do so. You are right, and you 
must be right, since I say that you are right. 
That is an " aristocratic " reason, no doubt; but 
it can be no otherwise without turning every- 
thing upside down.' 

And it is always thus. In 1794 General 
Igelstrom, having been surprised at Warsaw by a 
popular outbreak, is suspended from office ; but, 



272 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

one day, as those about the Empress are intent 
upon running him down, she raises her voice : 
' Silence, gentlemen ; do not forget that he served 
me for thirty years, and that I owe to him the 
peace with Sweden.' 

A fragment of conversation with Count Nicolas 
Roumiantsof, the son of the hero of the first 
Turkish war, which is reported to us by Gretch, 
shows, on the other hand, the multiplicity of 
means which she has at her command, and which 
she uses to obtain the aid of those whose devotion 
is likely to be useful to her. She asks the Count 
if he thinks it easy to govern men. ' I think there 
is nothing more difficult/ replies Roumiantsof. 
4 Come now, you have only to observe three 
principles : the first is to act so that people fancy 
they are doing of their own accord what you make 
them do.' 'That is quite enough,' interrupts 
Roumiantsof. Admiral Tchitchagof relates that 
his brother, who was gentleman of the bedchamber, 
had one day the misfortune to be late in arriving. 
The Empress observed it, and did not fail to com- 
ment on this negligence, but it was in the form 
of eulogies heaped on the father of Tchitchagof, 
who, for fifty years, never once failed to be at his 
post. Those who were present imagined that the 
young man was receiving the most extraordinary 
signs of imperial favour, until he confessed to 
them afterwards that he had never been so 
miserable and confused. 4 1 make it a point to 
praise aloud, and to complain quietly,' said 
Catherine. 

And is it not easy to imagine the effect that a 
word from her lips, a gesture of her hand, the 
slightest mark of satisfaction or of dissatisfaction, 



THE ART OF RULING 273 

coming from her, would have over the simple and 
impressionable people with whom she was for the 
most part brought in contact ? Tchitchagof relates 
that a General Vorontsof, Commandant of the Post 
of Revel, whom he had known well, was struck 
by an attack of apoplexy, of which he died, at the 
mere idea of having incurred the sovereign's 
displeasure. A non-commissioned officer named 
Stepan Chirai, sent to the Empress by Souvarof 
with the news of the taking of a fortress, returned 
with the Cross of St. Vladimir of the fourth class, 
which the Empress herself had pinned on his 
chest. Thirty years later the Emperor Nicholas, 
on the day of his coronation, thought to advance 
him a class. He returned the new cross: he could 
not make up his mind to give up the one that 
he had received from the hands of the matouchka \ 



111 

Catherine's art of ruling was not, however, 
without its shortcomings, some of which were 
due to the mere fact of her sex, whose depen- 
dences and weaknesses she was powerless to 
overcome. ' Ah ! ' she cried one day, ' if heaven 
had only granted me breeches instead of petti- 
coats, I could do anything. It is with eyes and 
arms that one rules, and a woman has only ears.' 
The petticoats were not solely responsible for her 
• difficulties. We have already referred to a defect 
which bore heavily upon the conduct of affairs 
during her reign : this great leader of men, who 
knew so well how to make use of them, did 
not know how to choose them. Her judgment, 



274 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

usually so accurate and penetrating, her lucidity, 
great as it was, deserted her on this point. She 
could not see in others either the qualities or the 
defects that she discovered and analysed in herself 
with so extraordinary a clearness of sight. There 
was here a gap in her intelligence, due probably, 
in part at least, to the influence of her tempera- 
ment. It seems that her vision of men in general 
was disturbed, in this respect, by the breath of 
passion which influenced all her life. The general, 
the statesman, of whom she had need, she seemed 
to see only through the male whom she liked or 
disliked. What she looked for first, in the face of 
any functionary whatever, was the romantic side, 
the more or less attractive exterior. That she took 
Patiomkine for an able man may be excused ; he 
was perhaps a madman, but he had the madness 
of genius. He belonged to the category of men 
who are called forces of nature. And this force, 
let loose upon immensity in this 'fallow land ' for 
which Catherine felt that she had been born, had 
its value. But after Patiomkine came Zoubof. 
He was a mere puppet : Catherine took him for 
a man of genius. 

The contrary also happened to her. Rou- 
miantsof having presented before her one of his 
lieutenants, General Weissmann, whom he judged 
capable of taking his place in case of need, 
Catherine conversed with him on three occasions, 
and, having turned him this way and that, 1 came 
to the conclusion that he was an absolute fool/ 
The wretched man shortly afterwards rushed 
upon his death in the battle of Koutchouk- 
Kajnardji. In the opinion of all competent 
to judge, he was beyond compare as a soldier, 



THE ART OF RULING 



275 



and valiant among the valiant. One historian 
has called him 'the Achilles of the Russian 
army.' 

These mistakes of judgment were frequent. 
But Catherine did more than this, and worse. 
With the obstinacy which characterised her, and 
the infatuation that her successes gave her, she 
came little by little to translate this capital defect 
into a parti prts, to formulate it as a system ; one 
man was worth another, in her eyes, so long as 
he was docile and prompt to obey. She had in 
this respect maxims which might well disconcert 
her admirers. 

1 Tell me/ she wrote to Grimm^ ' if ever 
sovereign has more absolutely chosen his min- 
isters according to the voice of public opinion 
than Louis XVI. ? And we have seen what 
happened. According to me, no country has a 
dearth of men. Don't try to look all round about 
you, try to use what you have at hand. It is 
always said of us that we have a dearth of men ; 
yet in spite of all, things come right. Peter I. 
had the same, and knew not how to read or write ; 
well, did not things succeed ? Ergo, there is no 
such thing as a dearth of men ; there is a multi- 
tude, but you must make them move : all will go 
well if you have this other to make them move. 
What does your coachman do, souffre-douleur, 
when you are boxed up in your coach ? A good 
heart goes everywhere ; because this or that is 
narrow and limited, the master is not.' 

And again : 1 Assuredly men of worth are 
never lacking, for it is affairs which make men 
and men which make affairs ; I have never tried 
to look for them, and I have always found close 



276 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

at hand the men who have served me, and I have 
for the most part been well served.' 

This does not hinder her from one day making 
this reflection, which she puts in a letter to the 
Prince de Ligne — 

4 Ah, Prince, who knows better than I do that 
there are clerks who are ignorant that a maritime 
town has a port ? 1 

And this other — 

4 It is not ideas which are wanting ; it is in the 
execution, it is in the application, that things often 
go awry.' 

This does not prevent her, in 1774, from being 
on the point of going to Moscow herself in order 
to put down Pougatchef ; for, since the death of 
Bibikof, she knows not who can cope with him. 
She summons a council : Gregory Orlof declares 
that he has slept badly and has not an idea 
in his head ; Razoumofski and Galitzine are 
silent ; Patiomkine is for the man whom she 
chooses ; Panine alone has the courage to give 
advice, and his advice is that the Empress 
should appeal to his brother, General Panine, 
whose services she has long neglected, thinking 
that another would do equally well in his place. 
The peril being urgent, she submits, sacrifices 
her amour-propre, and Panine saves the crown 
and the empire. In 1788, after the first en- 
counter with the Swedes, she court-martials three 
captains of frigates ; the next day she writes to 
Patiomkine : 1 They deserve the gallows, but there 
is nobody else to put in their place, unless he falls 
from the sky.' 

With the multiplicity of her enterprises, and 
with her ideas on this point, which are but the 



THE ART OF RULING 



277 



expression of her caprices, she uses up a terrible 
number of men. Her maxim that 'affairs make 
men ' leads her to multiply to excess the number 
of functionaries. According to one testimony, if 
the two capitals and a few other larger towns are 
left out of the question, there is one functionary 
to every ten inhabitants in the provinces. 
And her idea that one man is worth as much as 
another causes her, for a mere nothing, for a 
word that offends her, for a cast of countenance 
that she finds unpleasing, or even without motive, 
for the pleasure of change and the delight of 
having to do with some one new, as she avows 
naively in a letter to Grimm, to set aside, 
disgraced or merely cashiered, one or another 
of her most devoted servants. In 1788 Rou- 
miantsof, the greatest warrior whom Russia pro- 
duced before Souvarof, is still alive, and well 
able to take the command, and Alexis Orlof, 
the hero of Tchesme, is burning to renew his 
old exploits. He has had a certain apprentice- 
ship to the trade, which he entered into 
in 1770, and a name that the enthusiasm of 
Catherine herself has surrounded with such an 
aureole, that his reputation is worth in itself a 
fleet or an army. But both the one and the 
other, Roumiantsof and Orlof, have long been 
sacrificed to Patiomkine, and Catherine is re- 
duced to seeking generals and admirals in Eng- 
land, in Holland, in Germany. At last she 
finds Nassau-Siegen, who, after having enchanted 
her by his matador airs and stage costumes, ere 
long costs her a fleet, and the shame of a disaster 
without precedent in the history of the young 
Russian navy. 



278 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



The extravagant optimism, which is part of 
the character of Catherine, and which colleagues 
like Nassau and Patiomkine assiduously encour- 
age, has also to be observed. The story of the 
scene-painting on canvas, which, during the visit 
to the Crimea, is said to have represented the 
absent villages, has been disproved. It is not 
so very far from the truth, on the testimony even 
of those who have contested its reality. The 
Prince de Ligne is among these ; he observes, 
nevertheless, that Catherine, never going on foot, 
could see no more than what was shown her, and 
imagined frequently that a town was built and 
inhabited, 'when this town had no streets, the 
streets no houses, and the houses no roofs, doors, 
or windows.' The Comte de Langeron, who 
was afterwards governor of these very provinces, 
and whose memoirs have not the slightest trace 
of retrospective hostility, goes even further. A 
proclamation of the governor of Harkof, Vassili 
Tchertkof, issued at the same time to announce 
to the inhabitants the coming of the sovereign, 
and to instruct them in their duties on this 
solemn occasion, is equally characteristic in the 
same way. It is severely ordered that the in- 
habitants are to dress themselves in their best 
clothes when her Majesty is expected to pass by. 
The girls are to have their hair carefully combed 
out and adorned with flowers. They are also 
to strew flowers on the Empress's path, and 
all the population is to 'express its delight by 
appropriate gestures and attitudes/ The houses 
on the route are to be repainted, the roofs 
repaired, the doors and windows decked with 
festoons, and, as far as possible, with rugs 



THE ART OF RULING 



279 



pleasing to the eye. It is forbidden for any one 
to get drunk, or to present to her Majesty the 
smallest request ; this under penalty of the knout 
and hard labour. The local magistrates will see 
to it in addition that the passage of the sovereign 
does not raise the price of food. Prince Chtcher- 
batof relates that at Moscow all the beggars had 
been put outside, so that the Empress should not 
see them. - The Empress has looked, but not 
seen (vidiela i ne vidala), he adds, with an un- 
translatable play on words. This is how she 
came to be convinced that ■ there were no hungry 
people in Russia.' She gives that assurance one 
day to Grimm ! 

But the conquest and the arrangement of the 
Tauric peninsula were, in the hands of Patiom- 
kine, nothing but a colossal fderie mounted by 
that prodigious improvisatore and disappearing 
with him. It was difficult to decide, on seeing 
him at work, which to admire the most : his 
extraordinary activity and the fertility of his 
imagination, or the incredible na'ivetd with which 
both Catherine and himself take their creation, 
part madness, part fancy, part childish mystifica- 
tion, absolutely au sdrieux. A desert is to be 
transformed into a cultivated and well-populated 
land, inhabited by industry and the arts, and 
this is to be done in a few years, as if by magic. 
Patiomkine sets to work. He plants forests in 
the Steppes, imports the seeds of all known 
vegetables, trains vines, cultivates mulberry-trees 
for silk-worms, builds manufactories, theatres, 
palaces, barracks, and cathedrals. He covers the 
peninsula with magnificent towns. The history 
of these towns is astounding. The examples 



28o 



CATHERINE 11. OF RUSSIA 



which America offers to-day to our astonishment, 
in the same order of instantaneous improvisa- 
tions, are outdone. In 1784 a site is wanted 
for the capital of the province, which is to be 
named 4 lekatierinoslaf ' — glory of Catherine. 
Two months after the site has been marked out, 
there is already a project for a university, open 
not only to natives, but also to the strangers 
who are expected to flock from all the corners 
of Europe. Soon an army of workmen appears 
on the right bank of the Dnieper, at the spot 
chosen, not far from a humble Tartar village 
called Ka'idak ; Lieutenant Sinielnikof, who has 
charge of them, receives 200,000 roubles for the 
first cost, and the work commences. The town 
is to extend along the river about 25 versts, and 
to cover 300 square versts with streets 200 feet 
wide. There is to be a park, with a botanical 
garden, fish-pond, and different other embellish- 
ments. In the middle is to be the palace of the 
Prince of Taurida, Patiomkine the magnificent. 
Around are the buildings apportioned to the 
different services of the administration ; then 
come the dwellings of the workmen employed in 
building the town, the workshops, the manu- 
factories, the houses of the coming population. 
Twelve large factories, one of them for silk 
fabrics, are planned, and the funds for establish- 
ing them partly collected. A town-hall in the 
style of the old basilicas, a great bazaar in the 
style of the Propylaeum, a Bourse, a theatre, a 
Conservatoire of music, finally a cathedral on the 
model of St. Peter's, but larger, will be erected 
in various parts of the city, suitably chosen. The 
materials are ready, Patiomkine declares. In 



THE ART OF RULING 



addition, professors are already summoned for 
the university and the conservatoire. The cele- 
brated Sarti is to direct the latter. For the chair 
of history in the university a Frenchman named 
Guyenne is appointed, a soldier by profession. 
But these details must not be looked into too 
closely. An observatory too is thought of, and 
a sort of Quartier Latin for. the students. 

Such are the plans ; now see the results. The 
palace of Patiomkine is built of conservatories, 
one for pine-apples, another for laurels and 
orange-trees, others again for pomegranates, 
dates, etc. The silk factory is also built. It 
costs 240,000 roubles, and works for two years, 
after which various reasons, the principal of which 
is a scarcity of material, bring it to an end. The 
silk-worm industry, for which a manager has 
been brought from abroad at a considerable 
salary, produces a maximum of twenty pounds of 
silk a year ! The remainder of the great city 
exists only in fancy. But Iekatierinoslaf had, all 
the same, a chance of becoming in time a little 
provincial town. Kherson, of which Joseph II. 
laid the first stone in 1787, saying that after him 
Catherine had laid the last, did not even arrive 
at this modest result. In other parts of the 
empire the rapid erection of administrative or 
industrial centres ran similar risks. In 1787 
the poet Dierjavine, accompanying the governor 
of Petrosavodsk in a journey undertaken for the 
inauguration of a town which had been appointed 
chief town of the district, never reached the goal, 
he tells us : the town existed only on paper ! 

Nevertheless the Crimea was conquered and 
began to be populated. 
19 



282 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



'Such, in Russia,' said the Comte de Segur, 'is 
the double magic of absolute power and of passive 
obedience, that nobody murmurs, even though in 
want of everything, and things go on, although 
nothing has been prepared or looked after in 
advance.' 

' Things went on,' in fact, from one end to the 
other of Catherine's reign, and 'passive obe- 
dience,' no doubt, had a large share in it. The 
adventure of Sutherland, the English banker at 
St. Petersburg, is well known. One day the 
chief of police, Ryleief, presents himself, and, 
with all sorts of excuses, communicates to him an 
order of the sovereign which concerns him, an 
order which he cannot but deplore, despite his 
respect for the will of her Majesty, but which it is 
out of his power not to execute. In a word, he 
has been ordered to stuff the unfortunate banker. 
Conceive of the poor man's fright ! Happily the 
mistake is discovered in time. The Empress 
had spoken of stuffing a favourite dog that she 
had lost, and the English name had put Ryleief 
on the wrong track. The English Dr. Dimsdale 
relates, in the notes he has left on his residence 
in Russia, that having wished to take the lymph 
for inoculating the Empress from a child belong 
ing to poor motijiks, the mother opposed it : 
according to the general belief, it meant the 
death of the child. But the father intervened: 
' If the Empress ordered us to cut off both the 
child's legs, should we not do it ? ' Dimsdale 
adds nevertheless another characteristic. The 
sick child was placed in an overheated room, in 
a fetid atmosphere, the opening of a window, 
according to the parents, meaning certain death. 



THE ART OF RULING 283 

But Dimsdale produced a rouble : he could open 
as much as he liked. 

The anecdote reveals another agent, universal 
and all-powerful, which the ways of the country 
put in the hands of Catherine. She did not fail 
to use it. She used it vigorously and to excess, 
after her usual style. She gave much, and let 
even more be taken. The waste of money in 
every branch of the administration was enormous. 
One day Catherine, in the midst of a violent 
headache, could not suppress a smile : ' She did 
not wonder that she was suffering so much, for 
she had seen in the accounts that she used a poud 
(over thirty pounds) of powder every day for her 
hair ! ' This detail enables one to judge of the 
rest. But the accounts that Harris sent to the 
English court, with the detail of 'tens of thou- 
sands of pounds sterling' used by his French 
colleagues in corrupting the functionaries of the 
Empress, were not less fanciful. The Baron de 
Breteuil was the sole French minister at' this 
epoch who was empowered to employ in this 
manner a considerable sum, to the extent of a 
million of francs ; and he never made use of the 
permission. His successors had something to do 
to obtain a few ten thousand pounds intended for 
the buying over of certain influences or certain 
secret documents. And these attempts, con- 
sidered even at Versailles as useless or dangerous, 
had not as a rule any success during the reign of 
Catherine. A functionary of the Empress, who 
had, or appeared to have, a great fancy for a fine 
coach made in Paris, thought better of it before 
he had received the present, and informed the 
sovereign, who dictated to him herself an ironi- 



284 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



cally-polite letter of refusal. After the Baron 
de Breteuil, in the long series of agents repre- 
senting the French policy who succeeded him 
at St. Petersburg, the Comte de Segur was 
the only one who succeeded in exercising any 
particular influence, and money, which he would 
have found it very difficult to raise, had no 
share in this. 

From 1762 to the death of Catherine, there 
was only one great corrupting influence in her 
empire — and that was herself. It is certain that 
she used it mainly for the good of the empire, as 
she conceived it, and that she found in it the 
resources for the accomplishment of great things. 
It is not less certain that morality had to suffer 
for it, and that the influence of ideas and 
customs thus implanted in the national genius, 
was destined to exercise on its later development 
a long and untoward action. 

We shall now endeavour to pass rapidly in 
review the results obtained by means of all these 
resources as they were wielded in the hands of 
the sovereign. 



CHAPTER II 

HOME POLICY 
I 

Happy is the nation without a history : from 
1775 the Russian people counted, in point of 
view of the home policy, among the happy 
nations. After the great effort which she had to 



HOME POLICY 



285 



make in putting down the revolt of Pougatchef, 
Catherine found herself at first fatigued, then 
disenchanted, and finally absorbed by her foreign 
policy, by the conquest of the Crimea, the second 
Turkish war, the second and third division of 
Poland, and the anti-revolutionary campaign. 
Up to 1775 sne asserted, and had need to assert, 
her exuberant activity in every direction. She 
had first to defend her throne against a series of 
more or less threatening attempts. A series of 
repressive measures, more or less calculated to 
add to her glory, corresponded with them, 

In October 1762 a certain Peter Hrouchtchof 
was accused, with the brothers Simon, Ivan, and 
Peter Gourief, of having plotted for the re- 
establishment on the throne of Ivan of Brunswick, 
shut up since 1741 in prison. Having been 
condemned, together with his accomplices, to 
transportation to the government of Oremburg, 
Hrouchtchof took part in 1772 in the revolt of 
the exiles in Siberia, under the leadership of the 
famous Beniowski. He succeeded in escaping, 
after a series of romantic adventures, reached the 
west of Europe by way of America, and served 
in the French army in the rank of captain. 

This conspiracy, true or false, for the reality of 
the criminal intentions imputed to the accused 
seems not to have been clearly established, has 
often been confused with another later event, in 
which the Princess Dachkof was compromised. 
In May 1763, during Catherine's visit to Moscow 
on the occasion of her coronation, fresh arrests 
for high treason were commanded by the Empress. 
But the unhappy Ivan, languishing in his prison, 
was not the cause this time. It was quite 



286 



CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 



another affair. There had been a rumour that 
Catherine intended to marry Gregory Orlof. 
Some of those who had taken the most active 
part in the elevation of the new Czarina, Fedor 
Hitrovo at their head, judged the interests of the 
empire endangered by this real or imaginary 
project. They formed a plot to hinder the 
Empress from carrying it out, or, in case of 
her persisting, to kill the favourite. Hitrovo, 
the first to be arrested, named as accomplices, 
Panine, Hliebof, Tieplof, Passek, the greater 
part of the heroes of the 12th of July, and the 
Princess Dachkof. He afterwards contradicted 
his assertions, and declared that he had only had 
to do with more obscure friends, the two brothers 
Roslavlef and Lasounski. Princess Dachkof, on 
being examined, declared proudly that she knew 
nothing in the matter, but that, if she had known 
anything, she would have kept silence just the 
same. Moreover, if the Empress wished to bring 
her head to the scaffold, after she had helped to 
set the crown on hers, she was prepared ! The 
affair had no very serious consequences. Hitrovo 
alone was exiled in the government of Orel. A 
ukase was also proclaimed in the streets of 
Moscow, to the sound of the drum, a ukase which 
was merely the repetition of an earlier act of 
Elizabeth's government (June 5, 1757), by which 
it was forbidden to the inhabitants to occupy 
themselves with matters which did not concern 
them. The affairs of state in general were com- 
prised in the enumeration of subjects thus denoted. 
The interdiction was renewed in 1772. 

Almost at the same time, a priest, the Arch- 
bishop of Rostof, Arsene Matsieievitch, raised 



HOME POLICY 287 

the standard of revolt in a much more audacious 
manner. The policy of Catherine in regard to 
the orthodox clergy did not fail to give rise to 
well-established criticisms. On coming to the 
throne she had pronounced vigorously against 
the measures by which Peter III. had brought 
about the disaffection, if not the active opposi- 
tion, of the church. She had reopened the 
private chapels, closed by order of the Czar, 
forbidden the performance of pagan plays at the 
theatre, reinforced the censorship of books ; 
finally, she had put an end to the secularisation 
of ecclesiastical property. Suddenly she changed 
her mind, and revoked all these measures in 
protection of interests which she thought it no 
longer needful to consult. A part of the goods 
returned to their former possessors was the 
object of fresh claims. The clergy in general 
bowed the head, as they had done before. 
Arsene alone rose in defence of the common 
rights thus outraged. He went so far as to 
introduce into the ritual certain new formulas 
which, under colour of menacing the enemies of 
the church, were levelled directly against the 
Empress. Arrested and brought before the 
sovereign, he broke out into language so violent 
that her Majesty was obliged to cover her ears. 
He was condemned to be degraded from his 
office, and shut up in a cloister, where he was 
employed, by express order, in the meanest work, 
in fetching water and chopping wood. Four 
years later, after a new attempt at revolt, he was 
removed from the cloister to a better-guarded 
prison. The fortress of Revel was selected in 
order that he might not be able to talk in Russian 



288 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



with his keepers, who only understood Lithuanian. 
He changed his name, and called himself the 
peasant Andre Vral, that is to say, liar, or Br odi- 
giagtiine, that is to say, brigand. He died in 
1772. A year afterwards, a shopkeeper named 
Smoline renewed the protest of the unfortunate 
bishop against the infringement of the rights of 
the clergy. In a letter addressed to the Empress, 
and filled with the most virulent invectives, he 
openly accused the sovereign of having ap- 
propriated the goods of the church in order to 
distribute them to Orlof and other favourites. 
He ended with this apostrophe : ' Thou hast a 
heart of stone like Pharaoh. ... Of what chastise- 
ment art thou not worthy, thou who every day 
dost chastise robbers and brigands ! ' Catherine 
proved that the mad creature calumniated her 
by showing him mercy. Smoline was only im- 
prisoned for five years, after which, at his own 
request, he was made a monk, and nothing more 
was heard of him. 

Nevertheless, in 1764, the death of Ivan of 
Brunswick had already added another stain of 
blood to that which the drama of Ropcha left on 
the dazzling horizon of the new reign. Ivan, it 
may be remembered, was the little Emperor of 
two years old, dethroned in 1741 by Elizabeth. 
Shut up at first with the rest of his family at 
Holmogory, on the White Sea, , then, alone, in 
the fortress of Schllisselburg, he had grown up 
in the shadow of the dungeon. He was said to 
be weak-minded and to stutter ; but he had 
reigned, and such another act of violence as the 
one that had dethroned him might reinstate him 
on the throne : he remained a menace. He gave 



HOME POLICY 



289 



some anxiety to Voltaire himself, who foresaw 
that the philosophers would not find in him 
a friend. In September 1764 he disappeared. 
The incident has given rise to contradictory tales 
and comments, in which history is quite at a loss. 
To oblige his imperial benefactress, the patriarch 
of Ferney was good enough to 'arrange' the 
incident. Others have done the same, Catherine 
the first of all. Here are the known facts. An 
officer of the name of Mirovitch, on guard at the 
fortress of Schlusselburg, induced a party of men 
under his command to render him assistance in 
setting free the 'Czar.' But Ivan had two 
guardians, to whom the strict command had been 
given to kill him rather than let him escape. 
They killed him. Catherine was suspected of 
complicity in the murder : she was thought to 
have planned the whole thing with Mirovitch, 
He, it is true, let himself be judged, condemned, 
and executed without a word ; but had he not 
been made to believe that he would be reprieved 
at the last moment ? Precedents existed ; under 
Elizabeth, several high dignitaries, Osterman 
among others, had profited by the imperial 
clemency at the very moment when their head 
rested on the block. 

There were certain curious details in the 
trial : on the express command of the Empress, 
no attempt was made to find other accomplices, 
likely as they were to be found, in the crime. 
The relatives of Mirovitch were not interfered 
with. It would be unreasonable to try to prove 
an accusation on such vague grounds. Catherine 
showed once again, in these circumstances, the 
force of mind which she possessed. She was 



2QO CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

travelling in Livonia when the news reached 
her. She did not hasten her return, or make 
any change in her itinerary. 

But the great crisis in home affairs was that 
of 1 77 1- 1 775. At all times, up to the begin- 
ning of this century at least, Russia has been 
the home of pretenders. From the first half 
of the seventeenth century, after the extinction 
of the dynasty of Rourik, they followed one 
another at brief intervals. Under Catherine 
the series was almost interminable. In 1765 
two deserters, Gavrilo Kremnief and Ievdokimof, 
successively assumed the name of Peter III. 
In 1769 there was a fresh apparition of the 
murdered Czar, and it was once more a deserter, 
Mamykine, who assumed the tragic and am- 
bitious mask. Emelian Pougatchef is thus only 
the continuation of a series. But this time 
Catherine has not to do with an obscure plot or 
a puerile attempt, which a few blows of the knout 
or the axe will soon set right. A whole tempest 
is let loose after the wild Samozvaniets, a storm 
which threatens to shake the throne and the 
foundations of the empire in a general downfall 
of the whole political and social structure. It 
is no more a mere duel between usurpers more 
or less well-armed for the defence or the con- 
quest of a crown, which has so long been at 
the disposal of whoever can seize upon it. The 
contest has another name and another bearing. 
It is a contest between the modern state, which 
Catherine is endeavouring to extricate from the 
unfinished materials left by Peter I. to his heirs, 
and the primitive state, in which the mass of 
the people persist in still living ; between organi- 



HOME POLICY 



291 



sation and the inorganic disorder, which is the 
natural mode of existence of savage nations ; 
between centralisation and the centrifugal force 
which is peculiar to that state of nature. It 
is also the cry of that misery, in which the 
depths of the populace lie buried, rising against 
the improvised splendour of a class, how con- 
fined ! of privileged persons. It is the obscure 
protestation of the national conscience against 
the panegyrics of philosophers and poets, of 
Voltaire and Dierjavine, chanting the splendours 
of the new reign. For if Catherine, on the 
heights on which she is surrounded by her 
crowd of dignitaries and favourites, by all the 
pomp and majesty of her supreme rank, has 
done much already to give incomparable lustre 
to her name, her power, her own greatness, 
she has done as yet nothing, or almost nothing, 
for those under her, for the poor, the lowly, 
who toil and suffer as in the past, who have no 
share in these triumphs and conquests on high, 
who know nothing of them, save to be ex- 
asperated by the reflection which does but light 
up the depths of their own misery. Among 
these, the short reign of Peter III. had awakened 
hopes and left behind it regrets. The seculari- 
sation of the estates of the clergy, begun by the 
Emperor, had seemed to lead the way towards 
the enfranchisement of the serfs, and did indeed 
point in that direction, for the serfs belonging 
to the secularised domains became free. We 
have seen that Catherine put an end to this. 
Peter had also inaugurated a system of absolute 
tolerance in regard to religious dissent. He 
had no wish to keep special watch over the 



292 CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 

welfare of the orthodox church. Legend, as 
usual, exaggerated his merits. The skoptsi, or 
mutilators, in particular, venerated in him a 
saint and martyr of their cause. His affiliation 
to their sect was, they imagined, the real reason 
of his death ; and the accidents of his married 
life lent some colour to these fables. Catherine, 
as we have seen, did not follow in this respect 
either the course of her husband, and what had 
made her victorious now turned against her. 
The raskol played a considerable part in the 
movement of insurrection, and with it all the 
elements of discontent and disorder, even to 
the turbulent restlessness of the Asiatic races, 
now in conflict, in the neighbourhood of Kasan 
and of Moscow, with the Russifying headship 
of the state : all that entered into conflict with 
the state and the regime which it made and 
maintained. Emelian Pougatchef was merely 
the instrument, the nominal leader of this 
general uprising of the rancours and appetites 
of an immense proletariat. Yet earlier, scattered 
instances of revolt among the serfs attached to 
the soil had often been seen. In 1768, in the 
government of Moscow alone, there were nine 
cases of proprietors killed by their peasants. 
The following year there were eight more, and 
among the victims was one of the heroes of the 
Seven Years' War, General Leontief, taken 
prisoner on the battlefield of Zorndorf, and 
married to a sister of the victorious Roumiantsof. 

Emelian Pougatchef was the son of a Cossack 
of the Don. He too had taken part in the 
Seven Years' War, where he had distinguished 
himself, had served also against the Turks, 



HOME POLICY 



293 



and had then deserted. He was captured, 
escaped again, and entered upon the career 
of an outlaw and brigand, by which he came 
in time to the sanguinary drama which brought 
his life to an end. The fact of an accidental 
resemblance with Peter 1 1 1., which rendered his 
imposition more practicable, has been denied, 
and seems to rest on no serious authority. 
The portraits of the Samozvaniets which have 
reached us show no trace of likeness. Peter 
III. had the face of a grimacing ape; Pou- 
gatchef s was -of the common type of the Russian 
moujik. He took the name of the deceased 
Emperor as others had taken it before him. 
But he had the fatal luck to appear at the 
hour marked for the social convulsion, whose 
causes we have indicated. He did not start 
the movement, which had long been gathering 
force ; it was rather the movement that bore 
him with it. He did not even try to direct 
its course. He put himself at its head and 
rushed forward blindly, urged on by the tumul- 
tuous and threatening flood. It was a terrible 
course, covering with smoking ruins a half of 
the empire. After four years, the disciplined 
force of the organised element got the better 
of the savage element. Pougatchef, conquered 
and made prisoner by one of the lieutenants of 
Panine, was brought to Moscow in a wooden 
cage, condemned to death, and executed. The 
headsman cut off his head before quartering 
him. Catherine declared that it was by her 
order : she wished to appear more clement than 
Louis XV. had been with Damiens. She had 
nevertheless other injuries and other crimes to 



294 CA THERINE II. OF R US SI A. 

avenge. The victims made by Pougatchef and 
his band were beyond all reckoning, and Cathe- 
rine had been greatly terrified, whatever sallies, 
more or less witty, she may have sent to Voltaire 
on the subject of the ' Marquis de Pougatchef.' 

An odd characteristic of this incident, but odd 
in a way which is often seen in similar circum- 
stances, was that, while revolting against the 
state, as they saw it under Catherine's organisa- 
tion, Pougatchef and his companions could only 
copy this organisation, ape it at least, even to the 
smallest details of its outer forms. ' After having 
married a daughter of the people, the false 
emperor gave her a species of court of honour. 
Young peasants, beaten into trim, played the 
freiline with immense grotesqueness, attempting 
ceremonious reverences and a respectful way of 
kissing the hand. To increase the illusion of his 
supposed sovereignty, Pougatchef even went the 
length of naming his principal lieutenants after 
the principal members of the court of Catherine : 
the Cossack Tchika took the name of Tcherni- 
chef, with the title of field-marshal ; others were 
called Count Vorontsof, Count Panine, Count 
Orlof, etc. 

This comedy cost dear to every one. It took 
from Catherine the last remains of her former 
enthusiasm for the redress of social iniquities; 
Russia, apart from immense material losses, had 
probably that of a reign which had seemed to be 
fruitful in great humanitarian reforms. The home 
policy of Catherine preserved to the last, as we 
have intimated, the trace of these terrible years, 
like the scar of blows received and rendered in a 
fight which was a fight to the death, There were 



HOME POLICY 



295 



others among the dead than those who perished 
by fire or steel. Some of the ideas that Catherine 
had brought with her to the government of the 
empire remained behind on the field of battle ; 
and perhaps they were among the best that she 
had brought. 

In regard to the department of police, Cathe- 
rine's regime, from 1775 especially, was, in a sense, 
a regime of reaction against that which Peter 
III. had inaugurated. Peter had suppressed 
the sinister secret chancellorship, the shameful 
heirloom of a time which Russia hoped never to 
see again. Catherine would not re-establish the 
institution with its hateful obsolete forms, but 
little by little, without using the name, she re- 
stored something very like the thing. She had 
Stephen Ivanovitch Chechkofski. A legend has 
been formed about this mysterious functionary, 
whom Catherine was never without. The reality, 
without equalling the horror of the memories left 
by the functionaries of Ivan Vassilevich, was 
doubtless of a kind to cast some shadow on the 
reputation that the friend of philosophers desired 
to preserve in Europe. In her hands it was 
a cunning and hypocritical machine of state. 
Chechkofski had neither official titles corre- 
sponding with his position nor apparent organisa- 
tion of his inquisitorial work. But his hand and 
eye were everywhere. He seemed to possess the 
gift of ubiquity. He never arrested any one : he 
sent out an invitation to dinner, which no one 
dared refuse. After dinner, there was conversa- 
tion, and the walls of the comfortable and discreet 
abode betrayed none of the secrets of these 
conversations. A particular chair was, it seems, 



296 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



set aside for the guest, whom a word, amiable but 
significant, had induced to cross the formidable 
threshold. Suddenly the chair, in which he had 
politely been motioned to be seated, tightened 
upon him, and descended with him to the floor 
below, in such a manner, however, that the head 
and shoulders of the personage remained above. 
The victim thus preserved his incognito from the 
assistants of Chechkofski, who subjected the 
lower part of the body to more or less rigorous 
treatment. Chechkofski himself turned away at 
this moment, and appeared to ignore what was 
passing. The performance finished, and the chair 
restored to its place, the host turned about, and 
smilingly took up the conversation at the point 
where it had been interrupted by this little 
surprise. It is said that a young man, fore- 
warned of what awaited him, used his presence of 
mind, and his great muscular strength, to thrust 
Chechkofski himself into the place reserved for 
him on the fatal seat. After this Jie took to 
flight. The rest can be imagined. Chechkofski 
died in 1 794, leaving a large fortune. 



11 

The great ensemble of laws which Catherine 
proposed, in 1767, to graft upon Russia, on the 
model of Montesquieu and Beccaria, was destined 
never to be achieved, despite certain legislative 
experiments, done always by fits and starts. 
The main reason for this, apart from many 
secondary reasons, is that the work could only 
be done by beginning at the beginning, and the 



HOME POLICY 



297 



beginning was the reform, if not the suppression, 
of serfdom. 

This question, be it said to the honour of 
Catherine, is one of those that occupied her mind 
the most. When she was yet Grand Duchess, 
she had, as we have seen, certain projects, quite 
impracticable indeed, for the enfranchisement of 
the peasants belonging to the soil. She had 
found in books, one knows not where, the history 
of a general and simultaneous emancipation of 
serfs in Germany, France, Spain, and other coun- 
tries, — the work of a council ! She asked herself 
if a meeting of archimandrites could not produce 
the same excellent result in Russia. On reaching 
the throne she inaugurated the great work by 
reforming the condition of the serfs in the matter 
of the ecclesiastical estates confiscated by the 
Treasury : the peasants, included there, were 
subjected simply to a light poll-tax ; all that they 
gained in addition was their own property, and 
they could free themselves altogether for a 
moderate amount. It was the offer of liberty as 
a premium on the labour and industry of those 
concerned; and it was a fruitful idea. Its carry- 
ing out was not without inconveniences : the 
despoiled monks found themselves all at once 
reduced to beggary. According to the Marquis 
de Bausset, they had only about eight roubles a 
year per head to live on ; they were forced to beg 
on the roads ; and the degradation of the Russian 
clergy, one of the most melancholy features of 
modern Russia, may well be derived, in part at 
least, from this. But there were about a million 
peasants enfranchised, or about to be. It was 
a beginning. For further progress, Catherine 
20 



298 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

counted on her legislative commission. She had 
to alter her course, as we have seen. Her In- 
struction had in this respect to be retouched as 
we have indicated. The great mass of peasants 
belonging with the soil had not even a repre- 
sentative in the assembly, which merely discussed 
to whom they should belong. Every one sought 
after this right : the shopkeepers laid claim to it, 
and also the clergy, and even the Cossacks, 
jealous of reclaiming their privileges. This re- 
luctance to admit her humanitarian ideas vexed 
Catherine. Some notes written at this period 
give us a curious glimpse of her impressions : 
4 If it is not possible to admit the personality of a 
serf, he is not a man. Call him an animal, and 
we shall win the respect of the whole world. . . , 
The law of serfdom rests on an honest principle 
established for animals by animals.' 

But the deputies of the commission did not 
read these notes, and probably they would have 
made no difference to their feelings. On all 
sides Catherine found an invincible opposition. 
By 1766 she had already proposed to the Society 
of Political Economy, founded under her auspices, 
a question concerning the right of the labourer 
to the land which he has watered with his sweat. 
A hundred and twenty replies were sent, in 
Russian, French, German, and Latin. It was 
Bearde de l'Abbaye, member of the Academy of 
Dijon, who won the prize of a thousand ducats. 
But, by thirteen voices against three, the society 
opposed the publication of his work. 

Catherine finally persuaded herself that the 
problem was for the present insoluble and 
dangerous to approach, The revolt of Pougat- 



HOME POLICY 299 

chef confirmed her in this idea. In the course of 
a conversation which she had at this time with 
the head' of the excise office, V. Dahl, she ex- 
pressed the fear that in raising the question there 
might result a revolution like that in America. 
She had evidently very vague notions as to 
what was happening at this moment across the 
ocean. 

- Who knows, however ? ' she added ; ' I have 
succeeded in so many other things!' In 1775, 
writing to her Attorney-General, Prince Via- 
zemski, she insisted again on the necessity of 
doing something for the unhappy serfs, without 
which ' they will sooner or later take the liberty 
that we refuse them.' Count Bloudof professes 
to have seen in the Empress's hands, in 1784, 
a projected ukase ruling that the serfs born after 
1785 should be free. This ukase never saw the 
light. In the papers of the Empress, found after 
her death, there is another project concerning the 
organisation of freedmen, notably the nine hun- 
dred thousand serfs who had been emancipated 
by the secularisation of the ecclesiastical estates. 
This document has been published in the 20th 
volume of the Reciteil de la Socittd d Histoire 
(of Russia). The numerous corrections on the 
original, written throughout in Catherine's hand- 
writing, prove that she worked over it a long 
time. She only arrived, however, at the some- 
what odd, and probably impracticable, idea of 
an application of municipal institutions to the 
very different conditions of rural life. This con- 
ception remained equally barren. 

There were many reasons why it should be 
so. In fact, the elevation of Catherine in 1762 



300 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

had been the work of the nobility, or at least 
of the upper classes, and not that of the people. 
It was therefore essential that the new Czarina 
should stand by this element, and be, in the 
first place, sure of it. Besides, even before her 
accession to the throne, the ' philosophical mind ' 
of Catherine, and her liberalism, did not prevent 
her from a certain preference for the old families, 
I as we see plainly in her memoirs. In course of 
time she substituted little by little for the old 
aristocracy of the Narychkines, the Saltykofs, 
the Galitzines, an aristocracy of recent creation, 
the Orlofs, the Patiomkines. But this was 
merely an exchange. On the other side, it is 
easy to see how a liberal of the stamp of 
Diderot could easily, after having examined the 
question of Prussian serfdom with the Princess 
Dachkof, come to the conclusion that a radical 
reform on this point would be premature. The 
observations of the Princess sufficed to shake, 
in the mind of the philosopher, convictions 
formed and nourished during twenty years. 
Probably something of this appeared in the 
conversations that Diderot afterwards had with 
Catherine herself. And ten years later, the 
Comte de Segur, having doubtless seen the 
peasants through the windows of the imperial 
coach, calmly expressed the conviction that their 
lot left nothing to desire. Catherine was bound 
to end, as indeed she did, by becoming per- 
suaded of it herself. In her notes on the book 
of Radistchef, an avowed and inflexible liberal, 
who, in 1790, thought it was still possible to act 
on the principles of philosophy, and paid dear 
for his error, the Empress goes the length of 



HOME POLICY 



301 



declaring, as an incontestable fact, that there is 
no peasant in the world better treated than the 
Russian peasant, and no master more kind and 
humane than a proprietor of serfs in Russia! 
To know the real truth in the matter, it is need- 
less to go very deeply into the examination of 
the facts, facts which resemble those of a martyro- 
logy. As an example of the humanity shown 
by the Russian lords to the serfs belonging to 
them, the Comte de Segur has pointed in his 
memoirs to a certain Countess Saltykof. It is 
an unfortunate instance. The early years of 
the reign of Catherine were filled with the re- 
port of the trial and condemnation of a Countess 
Daria Saltykof, accused of having put to death, 
by means of refined tortures, a hundred and 
thirty-eight of her serfs of both sexes. Seventy- 
five victims, one of them a girl of fifteen, were 
proved with certainty by the inquiry. And yet, 
despite the outcry of popular indignation, which 
has made the name of the Saltytchiha a fearful 
memory, Catherine dared not do complete justice. 
The more or less voluntary accomplices of the 
horrible woman, the pope who presided at the 
burial of the victims, and the valet who flogged 
them, received the knout in one of the squares 
of Moscow ; the Countess Saltykof escaped with 
penal servitude for life. Even this, however, 
denoted a progress ; under the reign of Elizabeth, 
under that of Peter III., these very facts, uni- 
versally known, remained unpunished. The 
knout was brought into play merely upon those 
who had denounced these abominable crimes ! 

The case of the Saltytchiha was exceptional ; 
the rule, however, was cruel enough. The law 



302 CATHERINE If. OF RUSSIA 

appointed no limit to the right of proprietors, 
in regard to the corporal chastisement of their 
serfs. It authorised them to send them to 
Siberia. It was a means of peopling the vast 
solitudes of the land of exile. Catherine added 
the power of completing the exile by hard 
labour. For the rest, the law was dumb, as 
in the past. And the jurisprudence varied. 
In 1762 the senate sentenced to transportation 
a proprietor who had flogged a peasant to death. 
But in 1 76 1 an identical act was punished merely 
by religious penance. A curious document has 
come down to us, a list of punishments inflicted, 
in the year 1751 and onward, on the estates of 
Count P. Roumiantsof. It is distressing to read ; 
a very nightmare. For entering his masters' 
room while they were asleep, and thus disturbing 
their sleep, a servant is flogged and condemned 
to the loss of his name\ he is to be called only 
by an insulting nickname, any one infringing this 
order to suffer five thousand blows of the stick, 
without mercy. Five thousand blows of the 
stick are, however, far from constituting a maxi- 
mum. A sort of criminal code, in use on the 
same estates, includes much severer chastise- 
ments. It is further provided that the applica- 
tion of these penalties is not to cause too much 
inconvenience to the proprietor, by depriving 
him too long of the labour of the beaten servants. 
It is ruled that a man who has received seven- 
teen thousand (sic) blows of the stick, or a 
hundred blows of the knout — the two are con- 
sidered equivalent — is not to remain in bed more 
than a week. If he is longer in rising and re- 
turning to work, he will be deprived of food. 



HOME POLICY 303 

This code was in force during the reign of 
Catherine. It corresponds pretty well with the 
general practice. In fact, after all her contra- 
dictory tentatives, Catherine took the initiative 
in this direction only in two cases, both of them a 
distinct aggravation of the existing regime. In re- 
gard to the treatment of the serfs by their masters, 
by suppressing the right of direct appeal to the 
sovereign, she suppressed the sole corrective, 
indeed a very insufficient one, which might, in a 
certain measure, have attenuated these monstrous 
abuses. Those who had complaints were sent to 
their proprietors, that is to say, to the butchers 
themselves ; and there the lash was applied. In 
1765 a ukase of the senate substituted for the 
penalty of the lash that of the knout and hard 
labour. In 1779 a French painter of the name of 
Velly, employed to paint the portrait of the 
Empress, was near making the acquaintance of 
this new legislation, having taken advantage of a 
sitting to present a petition to her Majesty. A 
diplomatic intervention was required to rescue 
him from the consequences of his false step. In 
regard to the law of serfdom itself, the great work 
of Catherine's reign was the introduction of the 
Russian common law in the ancient Polish pro- 
vinces of Lesser Russia, that is to say, the trans- 
formation of the free peasants into serfs belonging 
with the soil. 

In 1774, in talking with Diderot, who spoke 
with some disgust of the dirtiness that he had 
noticed in the peasants round St. Petersburg, the 
Empress demanded: 'Why should they look 
after a body which is not their own ? ' This 
bitter word, if it was really said, sums up a state 



3Q4 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of things with which she had finally come to 
reconcile her humanitarian aspiration. 

In 1789, in a series of advertisements in the 
Gazette de St.-Pe'tersbourg (No. 36), side by side 
with the offer of a Holstein stallion for sale, we find 
that of some copies of the Instruction pour la Com- 
mission Legislative, and lower down these lines — 

' Any one wishing to buy an entire family, or 
a young man and a girl separately, may inquire 
at the silk-washer's, opposite the church of Kasan. 
The young man, named Ivan, is twenty-one years 
of age ; he is healthy, robust, and can curl a 
lady's hair. The girl, well-made and healthy, 
named Marfa, aged fifteen, can do sewing and 
embroidery. They can be examined, and are to 
be had at a reasonable price.' 

This sums up what Catherine left to her suc- 
cessor by way of result, in regard to her work as 
legislator. 

• As she is ambitious of all sorts of fame,' wrote 
the Comte de Segur in 1 786, ' she wishes to lay 
claim, during the peace, to that of legislator ; but 
her subjects have put more obstacles in her way 
than her enemies, . . . and she has been forced 
to acknowledge that it is unfortunately easier to 
make great conquests than good laws.' 

At the same time, sending a memorandum on 
the general state of the legislation in Russia, the 
work of his brother, M. d'Aguesseau, he added 
the following reflections :— 

* The result of his work will be one more proof 
of this truth, that in a land of slaves there can be 
neither good laws nor good morals, that every- 
thing becomes corrupt before being civilised, that 
there is an inevitable lack of light and help, 



f 



HOME POLICY 305 

and that all things betray the irrationality of 
despotism, even the very measures that are in- 
tended to restrain and modify it.' 

At the top of his memorandum D'Aguesseau 
had put this line of Du Bellay : ' Plus je vois 
l'etranger, plus j'aime ma patrie.' 

in 

In regard to the administration of justice, 
Catherines reign is distinguished by several 
important reforms, whose merit, however, has 
been very variously appreciated^ Mercier de la 
Riviere expressed great enthusiasm in regard to 
an organisation of provincial tribunals put in 
force after the peace with Turkey in 1774. In 
the memoirs of a contemporary (Vinski), perhaps 
a better judge, these tribunals are referred to 
with not nearly so much praise. The reform has 
merely put 320 judges where there had formerly 
been 50, that is to say, in a government divided, 
according to the new regulations, into four districts 
with 80 judges each. 1 The most obvious result of 
this benefit to the poor farmer is that instead of 
three sheep he must now bring fifteen a year to 
the town/ in order to keep in well with justice./ 
All that, adds Vinski, may be good to dazzle 
strangers, and make them admire the Semiramis 
of the North ; for us Russians 4 it is a mere 
puppet-play.' 

Catherine also did her best to quicken the 
march of justice, always desperately slow. In 
1 769 a tradesman of Moscow, Popof, having been 
driven by the exasperating intricacies of procedure 
into crying aloud in open court that there was no 



306 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

justice in Russia under the reign of Catherine II., 
the Empress had these audacious words erased 
from the minutes of proceedings, but she com- 
manded, at the same time, that the affairs of Popof 
should be settled with the greatest despatch, 
* so that he might see that there was justice in 
Russia.' 

The sovereign's zeal was praiseworthy ; it pro- 
duced, as a rule, but little effect. The machine 
was too cumbersome for any one hand, even as 
energetic as hers, to regulate the heavy wheels. 
In 1785 some French shipowners were still 
awaiting at St. Petersburg the settlement of 
certain indemnities due to them for the losses 
they had endured in the first Turkish war. The 
Comte de Segur, who had exerted himself on 
their behalf, wrote that he could obtain no more 
than a postponement from day to day instead of 
from week to week. He added— 

' As for the actual debts, I will certainly do 
what I can, but I guarantee in advance that it 
will be useless. The English minister and I are 
convinced by sad experience that it is impossible 
here to get the money for letters of credit when 
the debtor refuses to pay. The laws are explicit, 
but the corruption of the judges, the indolence 
of the tribunals, custom and precedent, are always 
in his favour. The Empress has at this moment 
to decide the case of the Sieur Prory of Lyon, 
and the debtor says openly that if it is possible to 
make him lose his case, it will be at least quite 
impossible to make him pay. This inconceivable 
negligence in the execution of the ukases relative 
to debts is caused by the general disorder of the 
principal people here, who are all in a state of 



HOME POLICY 



ruin, and who protect the knavery of the Russian 
merchants who prop them up.' 

The initiative of the Empress, and her supreme 
right of justice, are frequently put in force, and 
in the most effectual manner, as we have already 
intimated, in the mitigation of the excessive 
severities to which the ordinary jurisdictions 
still cling. Catherine boasted that she had 
never signed a death-warrant. She nevertheless 
allowed both Pougatchef and Mirovitch to be 
brought to the scaffold. But she employed a 
subterfuge for these exceptional cases : declaring 
herself directly implicated in the case of those 
outrages which were to be punished, she would 
occasionally renounce her prerogative as high 
justiciary, in order, as she said, that she might 
not be at once judge and party. In general, she 
substituted transportation for capital punishment, 
and even for the lash. She nevertheless allowed 
the knout to be sometimes used, even as a means 
of coercion, in order to obtain the confession of 
the accused. It must be understood what this 
kind of torture was. The knout was a whip with 
a leather thong prepared in such a manner that 
it possessed at once the elasticity of gutta-percha 
and the hardness of steel. Wielded by an execu- 
tioner, who took a spring to strike with greater 
force, the thong cut into the flesh to the very 
bone, and left at every blow a deep furrow. A 
hundred blows were considered the limit, beyond 
which the resistance, that is to say the life, of the 
patient, even if exceptionally vigorous, could not 
go. In general, the ' subjects ' lost consciousness 
at the tenth or fifteenth blow. To continue, was 
soon to flog a dead body. The skill of the 



308 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

torturer consisted in taking aim, so as to lengthen 
out the bloody slashes on the patient's back, one 
by the side of another, without taking away an 
inch of flesh. At the moment of striking, the 
zaplietchnik (so called because he put the whip- 
hand behind his shoulder to give more force to 
the blow) cried to the patient : Bieriegis / ( Look 
out! or, literally, get aside) as a last touch 
of irony. In the torture-chambers the knout 
was commonly combined with the strappado ; the 
patient was flogged after having been suspended 
in the air by the arms, which had been pinioned 
behind the back, so as to put the shoulders out 
of joint, and cause an intolerable pain. 

We know that Catherine was resolutely op- 
posed to the use of torture. Nevertheless, in the 
course of a trial which lasted from 1765 to 1774, 
in connection with some fires, the torture was 
applied three times to the accused. 

A legend, of which we cannot verify the source, 
shows the sovereign, in the part of high justiciary, 
brought into contact with what is called to-day 
■ un crime passionnel.' The case is very compli- 
cated. A young peasant, the child of rich parents, 
is in love with a poor young man. Surprised by 
the father, she hides her lover under the mattress 
of the common bed ; promiscuity in sleeping ac- 
commodation being then general in Russia, even 
among well-to-do people of this class. The father 
stretches himself on the bed, and the unlucky 
man is stifled. A neighbour comes in. On 
hearing what has happened, he takes the corpse 
and throws it into the sea. But in return he 
forces the girl to become his mistress. She has 
a child, whom he also drowns. Then he becomes 



HOME POLICY 309 

in want of money, and demands it from the girl, 
who, in order to satisfy him, steals from her 
father. Finally, he makes her go with him to 
the tavern, so that he may parade his conquest. 
She goes, but, on coming out of the tavern, she 
sets it on fire. It burns, with all who are in it. 
She is arrested, and convicted of theft, infanticide, 
and incendiarism. The tribunals condemn her. 
Catherine sets her free, restricting her punish- 
ment to a religious penance. 

IV 

It is in the domain of administration, properly 
so called, that Catherine, from one end to the 
other of her reign, showed the most sustained, 
and, to a certain point, the most fruitful activity. 
She concerned herself with everything. We 
have a very voluminous personal work of hers on 
the establishment of manufactures. On the other 
hand, she takes it into her head, in 1783, to 
reform the toilette of the lords and ladies of her 
court, in order to render it less costly : this 
reform is not at all pleasing to the manufacturers. 
Elizabeth, we are told by Count Galovkine, in 
his memoirs, forced the beautiful Narychkine to 
wear her dresses without a hoop, in order that 
the charms of her figure did not too much outdo 
her own beauty. For less personal reasons 
Catherine had recourse to sumptuary laws, and 
the Grand Duchess Paul, on returning from 
Paris, is obliged to send back, without even un- 
packing them, the marvels that the famous 
Mademoiselle Bertin had put in her boxes. 
In general, it must be said, notwithstanding 



310 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

energy and good intentions, the initiative of 
the sovereign is shown in this direction, as 
in others, without either consistency or any 
particular knowledge of things, fragmentary, 
capricious, and at the beck of chance. 

' There are too many undertakings in this 
empire/ writes the Comte de Segur, in 1787; 
' the disorder that follows on the heels of pre- 
cipitation spoils the greater part of the best ideas. 
At the same time, there is an attempt to form 
a tiers Mat, attract foreign commerce, establish 
manufactures of all kinds, extend agriculture, 
increase the paper currency, raise the rate of 
exchange, build in towns, people deserts, cover 
the Black Sea with a new fleet, conquer a neigh- 
bouring country, bind down another, and extend 
the influence of Russia over all Europe. Certainly 
this is undertaking a great deal' 

Catherine, too, had to fight with enormous 
difficulties. During the first year of her reign 
she discovered that in the Senate, where the 
most complex questions regarding the administra- 
tion of the country were being debated, there was 
no map indicating the position of the governmental 
centres, whose affairs were settled without the 
least notion whether they were on the Black Sea 
or the White Sea. She sent a messenger to the 
Academy of Sciences with five roubles to bring 
one. She worked energetically at the repression 
of the many and extravagant abuses which had 
crept into the procedure of all the branches of 
local government, and Russia is indebted to her 
for much serious progress in this respect ; yet 
there too the task proved to be beyond her 
strength. One day she sent an officer of her 



HOME POLICY 



3ii 



guard, Moltchanof, to Moscow, to give a reversion 
of judgment, and clear up certain official corrup- 
tions which had been brought to her notice. 
Moltchanof required a passport for the journey. 
Russia has always been the land of passports. 
He lost three days in going about from office to 
office in order to obtain one. Meanwhile the 
delinquents, duly forewarned, had had time to 
put everything in order. A vast and shameless 
corruption spreads from top to bottom of the 
ladder of government. In 1770, during the 
plague of Moscow, the police officers arranged 
with the health officers to levy contributions on the 
rich bourgeois of the city. They were denounced 
as suspects ; the doctor, under pretence of ex- 
amining them, smeared nitrate of silver over their 
hands; black spots soon appeared, the supposed 
plague-stricken people were put in quarantine : if 
they did not buy themselves out, their houses 
were pillaged. At St. Petersburg even, a trust- 
worthy witness, the inspector of police, Longpre, 
sent over from Paris in 1783, on a judicial 
mission, points out the most shocking disorders : 
streets unguarded, fires destroying, at every 
instant, whole quarters of the town, etc. About 
the same time, the English envoy, Harris, 
mentions the case of one of his compatriots who, 
having been robbed of a large sum of money, 
tries in vain to obtain redress from the under- 
officers of police, and ends by going to the 
lieutenant of police in person, whom he finds at 
ten o'clock in the morning employed in working 
out combinations with a packet of dirty cards. 

One of the most durable, beneficial, and 
best managed works of Catherine was the 



312 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Foundling Asylum, erected in 1763. Privileges 
and favours, such as no benevolent institution 
ever received before, were granted to this estab- 
lishment : exemption from taxes and statute- 
labour, powers of legal self-government, personal 
liberty of inmates, and of those employed in their 
care, monopoly of the lottery, share in benefits at 
the theatre, etc. A revenue of 50,000 roubles 
was assigned by the Empress for the mainten- 
ance of the Asylum, while a philanthropist, 
Procope Demidof, erected the huge buildings at 
his cost. Betzky, appointed director, put into it 
his whole fortune (about two millions of francs) 
and twenty years of assiduous toil. A work 
published by him in 1775, under the title, Plans 
et Statuts des different s Etablissements ordomUs 
par r Imptratrice Catherine pour r Education de 
la Jeunesse, gives a good idea of the greatness of 
the scheme. Diderot, who superintended its 
translation and publication at the Hague, added 
a note in which we find these lines :— 

i When time and the steadfastness of this great 
sovereign shall have brought (these establish- 
ments) to the point of perfection of which they 
are all susceptible, and which some have reached, 
people will go to Russia for the purpose of seeing 
them, as people formerly went to Egypt, Lace- 
demon, and Crete, but with a curiosity which 
will, I venture to think, be better founded and 
better rewarded/ 

By this time people are, indeed, beginning to 
visit Russia. It is true that it is not precisely 
with the object that Diderot prophesied. But 
perhaps we must still wait for the accomplishment 
of his prophecy. 



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313 



V 

One side of Catherine's administration presents 
itself before us under the aspect of a problem 
defying all solution : this is her financial policy. 
What the finances of Russia were at her acces- 
sion she has said in a private journal, of which, 
unfortunately, a fragment only has been pre- 
served :— 

* I found the army stationed in Prussia without 
pay for the past eight months ; in the Treasury 
1 7 millions of roubles of unpaid bonds ; a mone- 
tary circulation of 100 millions of roubles, of 
which 40 millions were taken in kind abroad ; 
almost all the branches of commerce monopo- 
lised by private individuals ; the excise revenue 
farmed out for two millions ; a loan of two 
millions attempted in Holland by the Empress 
Elizabeth, but without success ; no credit and no 
confidence abroad ; at home, the peasants in 
revolt everywhere, and, in certain districts, the 
proprietors themselves ready to imitate their 
example.' 

This was the result of the rdgime that Peter I. • 
had found in force, and had not attempted to 
modify, which came from a conglomeration of 
ideas and traditions, the direct heritage of the 
Tartar domination, and of the Eastern habit 
which was summed up, not so much in the 
squandering, as in the pillage of all the econo- 
mical resources of the country, and which we 
have thus characterised, a few years since, in a 
study of the financial aspect of the great empire — 

' Everything that could be taxed was taxed, 
even to the long beards of the moiijiki, who 
21 



314 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

found themselves obliged to pay toll at the gates 
of the towns! To bring in the taxes, those in 
power resorted to fire and steel, to military- 
warrants, and to ingenuities of torture recom- 
mended by the experience of centuries. The 
treasury still remaining empty, the revenues 
were farmed out, sold, and put up for lottery. 
Finally, in despair, the whole was taken for the 
part, the object taxed for the tax, and in 1729 
there was established an " office of confiscated 
goods." ' 

What does Catherine do with this state of 
things ? She begins by trying to palliate it. 
She puts the resources of her private purse at the 
disposition of the state. Then she endeavours 
to amend the organisation of the public treasury. 
The capital vice of this organisation is the lack 
of unity : the finances of the empire are in the 
hands of different institutions, independent one 
of another, each acting in a different direction, 
each seeing which can make the most out of the 
other. Catherine attempts a unification and a 
centralisation of these services. Isolated reforms, 
the suppression of monopolies and indivisible 
privileges in a certain number of commercial 
societies, the cancelling of the farming out of the 
excises, furnish a supplement of receipts. But 
the sum-total of the revenue remains very low : 
it is not more than 1 7 millions of roubles (about 
85 millions of francs). Now the question is how 
to make it even with the new demands of the 
imperial policy, which would be on a level with 
that of the great European powers, that of 
France, which has a budget of five hundred 
millions of francs, of England, which has one of 



HOME POLICY 



315 



twelve million pounds. More than this, Cathe- 
rine desires to eclipse her rivals in the West. 
By her innumerable enterprises at home, by the 
pageantry of her court, by her largesses to a 
whole crowd of adulators, with which Europe is 
soon filled, by the gold which she showers on her 
favourites, she desires to efface the memory of 
the great king, the Rot Soleil, whose dazzling 
memory haunts her imagination. 

And she well-nigh succeeds ! The first Turkish 
war costs 47^ millions of roubles. And, after a 
few years' respite, she follows up again her great 
enterprises abroad with the annexation of the 
Crimea, the second Turkish war, the war with 
Sweden, the conquest of Poland, the expedition 
to Persia, etc. At home the outlay is not less. 
Favouritism costs in thirty-four years about 50 
millions of roubles. The maintenance of the 
court, with its disorder and extravagance, re- 
quires enormous sums. From 1762 to 1768 the 
keeping up of the palace of Peterhof alone is 
debited to the state in 180,000 roubles (900,000 
francs), and when the Empress arrives there in 
June 1768 she finds everything in absolute dila- 
pidation. The money has all gone elsewhere. In 
1 796 it is with a budget of about 80 millions of 
roubles that Catherine has to meet her liabilities. 

And meet them she does. From one end of 
her reign to the other she supplies for all. She 
pays for everybody and for everything : the 
apprenticeship of Alexis Orlof on the fleet in 
the Archipelago, the follies of Patiomkine, and 
the enthusiasm of Voltaire. She lets the gold 
slip through her fingers, and she is never in want, 
or never seems to be in want. How ? by what 



3i6 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



miracle ? The explanation is easy to give ; but, 
to understand that explanation, it is needful to 
penetrate a secret, of which Catherine had (and 
this was her merit and her great source of 
strength), if not the profound knowledge, at all 
events the intuition of genius. In all their 
struggles with the finances of the empire, it is 
strange that the governments of the empire never 
thought, at one time or another, of an expedient 
which, disastrous as its practice had been in the 
West, still tempted the fancy. On arriving at 
power Peter III. did, in fact, decree the founda- 
tion of a bank, and the issue of bank-notes for 
the sum of 5 millions of roubles. The idea of 
the Emperor did not at first attract the Empress. 
The paper currency, whose workings she did not 
exactly understand, did not seem of much use. 
But, in 1769, the exigencies of the Turkish war 
overcame her repugnances and scruples, and, 
from that time, the instrument of her financial 
power, the magic power which, from 1769 to 
1796, sustained the fortune and the fame of the 
great sovereign, fed the colossal and ever-renewed 
effort of her reign, and made up for all her 
prodigalities, was born. In twenty-seven years 
Catherine issued 137,700,000 roubles'-worth of 
paper money. Adding 47,739,130 roubles on 
the one part, and 82,457,426 roubles on the 
other, for the proceeds of home or foreign loans 
contracted at the same period, we arrive at a 
total of 264,665,556 roubles, or more than a 
milliard of francs, raised on the public credit. 
That is how Catherine paid. 



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317 



VI . 

There is not much to be said respecting the 
army in the reign of Catherine. Her reign was 
warlike ; it countenanced neither militarism nor 
the military spirit. The military spirit lives on 
discipline, respect for the powers that be, and 
also ambition. In making Alexis Orlof an admiral 
and Patiomkine a general in chief, Catherine by 
no means cultivated these sentiments. In 1772 s , 
at the congress of Fokchany, Gregory Orlof, who 
had never seen a battlefield, assumed the tone of 
a superior in speaking to Roumiantsof, the con- 
queror of Kagoul, and was near taking the com- 
mand in partnership with him. But Roumiantsof 
only changed rivals. A few years later, he had 
to retire before a new favourite. When it was 
no longer commanded by Roumiantsof, and not 
yet by Souvarof, the army was in general very ill 
commanded. But the soldier was then as he has 
since been, as he recently was under the walls of 
Plewna, and he had before him only the Turks, 
who were put hors de combat, so to speak, before 
the combat began, by the European tactics ; or 
else the Poles, who, like the Turks, were, in point 
of view of the art of war, two centuries behind 
the time. Catherine was careful to avoid fighting 
with the disciplined troops of the West. When 
she went against the Swedes, who were never- 
theless a poor adversary for Russia, she had 
cause to repent of it. Besides, she conquered 
cheaply, as Prince Henry of Prussia said. Doubt- 
less, however, her indomitable energy and her 
audacity contributed to bring victory to her side. 



3i8 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



Competent judges have accused her of having, 
in all that concerns the military administration, 
spoilt the work of Peter the Great. In 1763 she 
sanctioned a reform which put the regiments 
entirely into the hands of their colonels. Peter 
had confided the cares of administration to in- 
spectors, employed by a general commissariat, 
though a commissariat very much centralised. 
The abandonment of this organisation gave rise 
to numerous abuses. According to the Comte 
de Segur, the Russian army amounted, in 1785, 
to a fighting force of about five hundred and 
thirty thousand men, of whom two hundred and 
thirty thousand were the regular troops. Segur 
observed, nevertheless, that the disorder which 
reigned in the War Office made it impossible to 
get at the exact figures, and that the official 
numeration was a little dubious. He added : 
' Many colonels have confessed to me that they 
made from 3000 to 4000 roubles annually out of 
their infantry regiments, and that those of cavalry 
brought in 18,000 to their chiefs.' The Comte 
de Vergennes wrote at the same time : ' The 
Russian fleets were far from gaining fame by 
leaving the Baltic. The one which was last 
seen in the Mediterranean has not left a good 
reputation. Leghorn complains particularly of the 
officers, who have bought much and paid for little/ 

To sum up, Catherine attempted and began 
many things ; she achieved hardly any. It was 
in her nature to go forward without looking at 
what she left behind her. She left many ruins. 

' Before the death of Catherine,' some one has 
said, ' the greater part of the monuments of her 
reign were already in debris' 



HOME POLICY 



319 



There was a demon in her which drove her 
forward, ever forward, beyond the present hour 
and the result already attained, without leaving 
her even the satisfaction of a moment's pause to 
contemplate the finished work. This demon was 
perhaps only that of ambition, and of an ambition 
sometimes poor and trivial. When she had 
settled the plans and laid the foundations of an 
edifice, she had a medal struck, and, the medal 
once struck and put away in her cabinet, she 
thought no more of what was to be built. The 
famous marble church, begun in 1780, was still 
only begun twenty years after. 

But perhaps this was the part allotted by Pro- 
vidence to the Czarina, and was it not hers also to 
carry with her on this headlong course a people 
whom Peter I. had not succeeded in shaking 
entirely out of its sleep of ages — a sleeping giant 
under a shroud of snow — and who needed only to 
be drawn out of this torpor in order to follow the 
natural course, a torrent that nothing can inter- 
cept, towards a mysterious destiny ? And perhaps 
also Catherine was not entirely at fault when she 
wrote to Grimm, the day after the day on which 
was unveiled the monument which she had 
erected to the great Czar, her predecessor — 

' Peter I., seen in the open air, seemed to me 
to look quite brisk as well as imposing; one 
would have said he was pleased with the work. 
For some time I could not look at him fixedly ; 
I felt moved, and when I looked around me I 
saw that all had tears in their eyes. The face 
was turned away from the Black Sea, but the 
pose of his head seemed to say that he could see 
well enough either way. He was too far away to 



3 20 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

speak to me, but he seemed to me to have an air 
of satisfaction, which communicated itself to me, 
and encouraged me to try to do yet better in the 
future, if I can/ 



CHAPTER III 

FOREIGN POLICY 
I 

The famous German historian Sybel wrote in 
1869: ' No burning question arises in Germany 
in our days without our finding some trace of the 
policy of Catherine II/ This observation might 
well be generalised and applied to the greater 
part of Europe. Very ambitious, very feminine, 
sometimes almost childish, the foreign policy of 
Catherine was one of universal expansion. The 
opening of her reign seemed nevertheless to 
intimate something quite different. 

On coming to the throne, the Empress an- 
nounced herself as a peaceful sovereign, disposed 
to remain quietly at home if she were not inter- 
fered with, desirous, in consequence, of avoiding 
all conflict with her neighbours, and determined 
to employ all her activity in the home govern- 
ment of an empire which offered a sufficient field 
for her spirit of enterprise. This programme 
corresponded, even from the point of view of 
international relations, with an ambition which 
abdicated none of its rights, but which was 
governed by the most generous inspirations. 
Writing to Count Kayserling, her ambassador at 



FOREIGN POLICY 



321 



Warsaw, Catherine wrote : ' I tell you, in a word, 
that my aim is to be joined in the bonds of friend- 
ship with all the powers, in armed alliance, so 
that I may always be able to range myself on the 
side of the oppressed, and in this way become 
the arbiter of Europe.' 

She was not as yet, it is evident, thinking of 
the spoliation of Poland. She rejected the very 
idea of conquest. Courland itself did not tempt 
her. 4 1 have people enough to render happy/ 
she said, ' and this little corner of the earth will 
add nothing to my comfort' She thought to 
confirm the treaty of perpetual peace with Turkey. 
She reduced the fighting force of her army. She 
was in no haste to fill the vacancies made in her 
arsenals by the ruinous wars of the preceding 
reigns. She repeated that it was needful, before 
all things, to set the country in order and repair 
the finances. 

How did she come to abandon so soon and so 
entirely this initial point of view ? We can cite 
in this respect a most valuable piece of evidence. 
The man to whom we owe it is one of those who 
are the honour of their country, and the frankness 
of his language is calculated to throw light on this 
obscure side of Catherine's history ; it seems also 
to indicate that certain sentiments, to-day ignored 
or discredited in Russia, were not always foreign 
to noble minds. Some years after the death of 
Catherine, in a letter addressed to Alexander I., 
who had just assumed the throne, Count Simon 
Vorontsof wrote as follows : — 

'The late E-mpress desired peace and desired 
it to last. . . . Everything was calculated to con- 
firm it. ... It is Prussia . . . that induced Count 



322 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

Panine to revoke the ameliorations which had 
been introduced into the constitution of Poland 
in order to gain possession of the country with 
more facility. It is Prussia who persuaded this 
same minister to insist that all the Polish dissi- 
dents should be admitted to all the posts of state, 
which was impossible without employing violence 
against the Poles. It was employed, and it was 
this which formed the confederations, the number 
of which was carefully concealed from the 
Empress. Bishops and senators were arrested 
in full diet and exiled to Russia. Our troops 
entered Poland, ravaged everything, pursued the 
confederates into the Turkish provinces, and this 
violation of territory caused the Turks to declare 
war against us. ... It is from the time of this 
war that we must date the foreign debts, and the 
creation of paper money at home, two calamities 
which are the misery of Russia.' 

Thus it was Prussia which, in order to gain 
the assistance of Russia in its Polish policy, drew 
Catherine into a career of violent and violating 
enterprises of all kinds in which she found herself 
caught as in a wheel. This course, nevertheless, 
was, we incline to believe, inevitable for her in 
one way or another. Quite apart from Prussia, 
Catherine had from the first too lofty a notion of 
her power not to be tempted, one day or another, 
to make use of it, and too lofty a conception of 
the part she had to play, not to brush aside any 
sort of scruples. In October 1762, the court of 
Denmark having proposed to her to renounce the 
guardianship of her son, in respect of the Duchy 
of Holstein, she replied in these characteristic 
terms — 



FOREIGN POLICY 



323 



1 The case is perhaps unique that a sovereign 
empress should be guardian in a fief of empire 
for her son, but it is stranger still that a woman, 
who has five hundred thousand men ready to do 
battle for her ward, should be told that she ought 
not to be concerned with a Schvverdt (sic) which 
can hardly maintain three hundred men.' 

It is nevertheless probable, if not certain, that 
in entering upon the course which was to lead 
her so far from her first projects of collected and 
peaceful labour, Catherine did not realise whither 
she was going, nor that the current was bearing 
her along, that her first successes had intoxicated 
her, and that she was thus hurried forward, in 
her own despite, into a state of war-fever, which 
rose at times almost to madness, and in which 
she lost all count of the means at her disposal, 
and of every consideration of prudence, or, alas ! 
of equity. The Marquis de Virac wrote to the 
Comte de Vergennes in 1782 : ' Here they snatch 
at everything, greedily and unthinkingly, which 
seems likely to add a new glory to the reign of 
Catherine II. They do not trouble to count the 
cost ; the first thing is to be moving.' 

To be moving, no matter how, no matter 
where, to make a great racket, no matter at what 
cost, such, in effect, seemed to be the constant 
concern of Catherine from the time of the first 
Turkish war onward. Helped by her ' luck,' 
she reposed on the belief that something for her 
greater fame and the greater grandeur of her 
empire would come out of everything. ' The 
good fortune which crowns all the enterprises of 
the Russians,' writes the Comte de Vergennes in 
1 784, ' wraps them, so to speak in a radiant 



324 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

atmosphere, through which they see nothing. 
As for political system or general idea at the 
back of her enterprises, do not ask the Empress 
for anything of the sort. She will answer : 
'Cirumstances, conjunctures, and conjectures.' As 
for conciliating these enterprises with a higher 
law of morals, of humanity, or of international 
right, she has no thought of such a thing. ' It 
is as useless to speak to her of Puffendorf or of 
Grotius,' writes the English envoy Macartney 
from St. Petersburg in 1770, 'as if one spoke 
of Clarke or Tillotson at Constantinople.' 

Catherine, moreover, inaugurates, in the conduct 
of foreign affairs, a rule of personal initiative, 
which itself cannot but give to them an adven- 
turous turn, for she flings herself into it with her 
nervous and excitable woman's temperament. 
She expends, especially at the outset, an extra- 
ordinary activity. She dictates herself all the 
diplomatic correspondence. She soon finds out, 
it is true, that she cannot manage it all, and that 
the service suffers by it. She then reserves to 
herself the most important matters, leaving to the 
minister, that is to say, to Count Panine, the 
bulk of the work. She writes on April 1, 1763, 
to Count Kayserling : 'In future I hope secrecy 
will be better kept, for I do not choose to take 
any one into my confidence in regard to what is 
in the air/ Her predecessors had only short 
extracts communicated to them from the de- 
spatches of her foreign ambassadors. She insists 
on seeing the originals ; she reads and annotates 
them. These annotations are curious. On the 
margin of a despatch from Prince Galitzine, her 
ambassador at Vienna, informing her that the 



FOREIGN POLICY 



325 



courts of Vienna and of Versailles are inciting the 
Porte to meddle in the affairs of Poland, she 
writes : * He does not keep his eyes open, for he 
does not know even what the street children 
know, or else he says less than he knows.' 
Prince Repnine, writing from Warsaw, that in 
the course of a conversation with the Prussian 
ambassador, Baron Goltz, the latter has recog- 
nised that the orders of the King, his master, do 
not seem to him in the interests of his subjects, 
though they are perhaps in those of the sove- 
reign, she annotates : 'Is there then auy other 
glory than the good of the subject. These are 
oddities beyond my pale.' In 1780, on the first 
visit that he makes to the sovereign, Joseph II. 
is informed of this method of work, and is amazed 
at it. Up to the time of this meeting, however, 
which played a decisive part in the history of 
Catherine, the influence of Panine, as head of 
the department of foreign affairs, had been very 
great. It is this influence which, in spite of 
wind and tide, in spite even of the personal re- 
pugnance of the Empress, had kept her policy 
in touch with the Prussian alliance. The visit of 
Joseph brings about a sudden change. Catherine 
promptly brushes her minister aside in order to 
form, on her own account, the new alliance which 
opens new horizons before her on the side of 
the North Sea. And soon Panine is quite out 
of the reckoning. A mere clerk, obedient in 
carrying out the inspirations of the imperial mind, 
will suffice. One is soon found, excellent for the 
purpose, Bezborodko. * Properly speaking, the 
Empress has no longer a minister,' writes the 
Marquis de Verac in September 1781. 



326 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

This personal policy, superior as are the 
qualities of mind and temper of which Catherine 
gives proof, is not slow to subject her to numer- 
ous failures. There are infatuations, followed by 
disenchantments equally arbitrary. Fancy has 
full play, and the woman is too often seen in the 
place of the sovereign. It is a woman, and an 
angry woman, who from the 4th to the 9th of 
July 1796 draws up for Count Budberg, Russian 
minister at Stockholm, a communication intended 
to take the King of Sweden to task for thinking 
of coming to St. Petersburg without entering 
into an engagement beforehand to marry the 
grand-daughter of the Empress. Let him stay 
at home, then, this ill-bred prince ! She is tired 
of all the crotchets that cloud his brain. When 
one means to do anything, one does not make 
difficulties at every step. The document, an 
official document which has to pass through the 
chancellors office, is all in this tone. But can 
it be called a diplomatic communication ? One 
would say rather, a confidential letter to an in- 
timate friend, on whom one pours out all ones 
wrath and impatience, simply and solely to ease 
one's nerves. And to make the resemblance 
complete, there is a postscript. There are even 
four, each of which says something different, 
and indeed precisely opposite, to what has just 
been said by the last ; the whole summed up by 
agreeing, unconditionally and without reserve, to 
the visit which had been so vigorously objected 
to at the outset. 

At times Catherine realises the action of 
her temperament on her state policy, and the 
unbalanced elements that this influence brings 



FOREIGN POLICY 



327 



into it. A propos of her declaration of armed 
neutrality, issued April 28, 1780, she writes to 
Grimm : 1 You will say that it is volcanic, but 
there was no means of doing otherwise.' She 
adds a reflection which we have already found 
her making, and which seems to intimate that 
she has not forgotten her German origin, but still 
desires to make what capital out of it she can : 
1 Denn die TeutsckenJ she says, ' hassen nicht 
so als wenn die Leute iknen auf die Nase spielen 
wollen ; das liebte der Herr Wagner auck 
nicht! 

But this is only a way of putting things, or, 
at the most, a proof that she sometimes mis- 
judges the transformation which has taken place 
in her, and which links her to her adopted 
country by the deepest fibres of her being ; for 
her foreign and home policy alike are essentially 
Russian, as is her mode of thinking and feeling, 
indeed her whole nature. Russian, and not 
German, are the personal elements of success 
that she puts at the disposal of her ambition, 
as are also the defects which hinder their free 
course. For there is nothing German in this 
way of rushing forward with one's eyes shut, 
or dreaming with one's eyes open, which is 
peculiar to her, this way of leaving reflection 
and calculation out of the question. It may be 
said that her success is due to qualities the most 
precisely opposed to the German temperament. 
A cold and calculating German would never 
have undertaken the first Turkish war. ' The 
army,' writes Count Simon Vorontsof, 'was re- 
duced, imperfect, and scattered all over the 
empire. It had to march in the depth of winter 



328 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



against the Turkish frontier, and the cannons, 
mortars, bombs, and explosives had to be sent 
with the greatest possible speed from the arsenal 
at St. Petersburg to Kief.' When the second 
Turkish war and the Swedish war broke out, 
it was worse still. In 1783 the rupture with the 
Porte being imminent, a regiment of dragoons, 
which should have consisted of 1200 to 1500 
men, was summoned from Esthonia. Only 700 
men were to be found, with 300 horses, and 
not a single saddle. Catherine was by no means 
daunted. She had the faith which scorns ob- 
stacles, and will not admit impossibilities. This 
faith, which removes mountains, and sets cannons 
travelling from one end to the other of an empire 
some thousand miles in length, is not a German 
quality. 

Meanwhile, in the domain of foreign politics, 
Catherine accomplished great things with means 
which the constant illusion in which she lived 
doubled or tripled in her eyes, but which were 
really most moderate. She supplied their lack 
by her moral force, which was immense. 

From the point of view of the administration 
of the department of foreign affairs, she brought 
a distinct progress to Russia. Nothing daunted 
by the labour of which Frederick alone among 
contemporary sovereigns showed himself careful 
and capable, and adding to it the authority that 
she always carried with her, she gave to the 
administration of this department a unity of 
direction that it had never yet had. At the 
same time she insisted on habits of probity and 
professional dignity quite alien to the modes of 
a not very distant past. In June 1793 the 



FOREIGN POLICY 329 

English ambassador Buckingham, urging upon 
the chancellor Vorontsof the conclusion of a 
treaty of commerce, thought it quite natural to 
supplement his demand by the offer of a personal 
gratuity of ^2000. But Vorontsof at once re- 
plied : 1 1 leave it to those who are well versed 
in these shameful traffickings to decide whether 
2000 or 200,000 pieces would balance the sale 
of my sovereign's interests/ Bestoujef, the 
chancellor of Elizabeth, did not speak this 
language. 



22 



BOOK III 



THE FRIEND OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 
CHAPTER I 

LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 
I 

Count Hordt, a Swede, serving in the Prussian 
army, has left some interesting notes on his visit 
to St. Petersburg. The first five months of it 
were spent in prison. This was under the reign 
of Elizabeth. Peter, on coming to the throne, 
liberated the prisoner and invited him to dinner. 

' Were you well treated in your captivity ? ' 
asked the Emperor. 4 Don't be afraid to tell 
me.' 

' Very ill-treated,' replied the Swede. * I had 
not even any books.' 

At that a voice was heard, saying loudly : 
'That was barbarous indeed.' It was the voice 
of Catherine. 

We shall endeavour to show what were the 
relations, so often commented upon, but still so 
little really known, between the Empress and 
those who were the main instruments of her 
European fame. Voltaire and his rivals in the 
honour and adulation of the ' Semiramis of the 

S30 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 331 

North' demand a separate study. We shall 
here concern ourselves with Catherine alone. 

She loved books, as she has abundantly- 
proved. Her purchase of Diderot's library is 
well known. Dorat has celebrated this ac- 
quisition in an epistle in verse which figures in 
the edition of his CEuvres C hoists, embellished 
with a vignette in which are seen little Loves 
dressed in furs and travelling in sledges. Diderot 
asked 15,000 francs for his treasure. The 
Empress offered him 16,000, on condition that 
the great writer should remain in posses- 
sion to the time of his death. Diderot thus 
became, without leaving Paris, librarian of 
Catherine the Great in his own library. For 
this he had a pension of 1000 francs a year. It 
was to commence in 1765. The following year 
the pension was not paid. This was then the 
common lot of pensions and pensioners, not only 
in Russia. On hearing of it from Betzky, Catherine 
wrote through him to her librarian that she did 
not wish ' the negligence of an official to cause any 
disturbance to her library, and, for this reason, 
she would send to M. Diderot for fifty years in 
advance the amount destined to the maintenance 
and increase of her books, and at the expiration 
of that period, she would take further measures.' 
A bill of exchange for 25,000 francs accompanied 
the letter. 

One can imagine the transports of enthusiasm 
in the philosophic camp. Later on, the library 
of Voltaire joined that of Diderot in the Hermi- 
tage collection. It was Grimm who, after the 
death of the patriarch of Ferney, arranged with 
Madame Denis for this new acquisition. The 



332 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



conditions were, ' a certain sum ' at the discretion 
of the Empress, and a statue of Voltaire which she 
would place in one of the rooms of her palace. 
Madame Denis relied on the generosity of 
Catherine, so much belauded by the illustrious 
dead and by his friends, and Catherine was re- 
solved, as Grimm expresses it, ' to avenge the 
ashes of the greatest of philosophers from the 
insults that he had received in his own country/ 
The great man's relatives, his grand-nephews 
particularly, MM. Mignot and d'Hornoy, pro- 
tested against the transaction, which, they con- 
sidered, infringed upon their rights and upon 
those of France. M. d'Hornoy even attempted 
to procure an official intervention. But the 
Empress held to her bargain. Voltaire's books 
now form part of the Imperial Library, to which 
they have been removed from the palace of the 
Hermitage. A special room is assigned to them. 
In the middle is the statue of Houdon, a replica, 
from the hand of the master, of the one in the 
foyer of the Comedie Francaise at Paris. There 
are about 7000 volumes, the greater part half- 
bound in red morocco. Every volume contains 
annotations in Voltaire's handwriting. 

One need not be a Frenchman to feel, on 
entering this room, the indefinable sensation 
caused by the sight of things which are not in 
their proper place. These relics, the monument 
of one of the greatest glories of France, should 
assuredly not be here. 

These were not, however, the largest part of 
the additions to the imposing collection of printed 
books and manuscripts with which Catherine 
endowed Russia. The king Stanislas Ponia- 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 333 

towski was, we know, a cultivated man. On 
arriving at the throne, he endeavoured to satisfy 
his tastes and to share them with his fellow- 
citizens. The capital of Poland profited by this. 
It had already a considerable library, founded in 
1745 by two brothers, who were distinguished 
savans and good citizens, the Zaluskis. Ponia- 
towski enlarged it. On taking possession of 
Warsaw, Catherine transported the king to St. 
Petersburg, and the library along with him. 
Having no longer any political independence, 
the Poles were supposed to have no longer any 
need of books. 

Thus Catherine loved books : did she equally 
love literature ? The question may seem strange. 
It demands an answer, nevertheless. The reign 
of Catherine corresponds, in the history of literary 
development in Russia, to a well-marked epoch. 
The preceding epoch, dominated by the great 
figure of Lomonossof, stands out clearly. It was, 
during the lifetime of Elizabeth and for some 
years after her death, a period of absorption and 
assimilation of foreign elements en masse. Euro- 
pean culture entered into the national life by the 
door, one might say rather by the breach that 
Peter the Great had hewed open. A period 
of reaction and of struggle followed. The 
national genius, submerged, trampled upon, 
oppressed, revolted and demanded back its 
rights. It came finally to treat foreign litera- 
ture and science as enemies. The poet Dier- 
javine, and the satirical journalist and thinker 
Novikof, were the heroes of this campaign of 
liberation. What part was played in this crisis 
by Catherine ? We know what she did with 



334 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



Novikof : she broke his pen and his life ; fifteen 
years of imprisonment were the last reward that 
she gave to his labours. She treated Dierjavine 
worse still : she made him a tchinovnik and an 
abject courtier. 

For all this there is a reason. Catherine's 
was an intelligence specially, and, so to speak, 
solely organised for politics and the government 
of men. She is a little German princess, who, 
at the age of fourteen, comes to Russia with the 
idea that she will be one day the absolute mis- 
tress of this immense empire, and who has con- 
scientiously applied herself to prepare for the 
part she will have to play, a part, judging by the 
examples before her, which has nothing in common 
with that of a literary Mecaenas. Consequently, 
all her ideas, all her tastes, are subordinated to 
this definite conception of her destiny, and of the 
rights and duties resulting from it. What she 
appreciates in Voltaire, when the fame and the 
books of Voltaire reach her, is not the charm of 
style — does she even know what style is ? — but 
the support that the prose, good or bad, of the 
author, his poetry, melodious and full of senti- 
ment, or dry and hard to the ear, might afford 
to the development of the programme of govern- 
ment that she has vaguely mapped out in her 
mind. She has no sense of harmony, and, beyond 
her family relations and her love-episodes, she 
pays little heed to sentiment. At one moment, 
at the beginning of her reign, influenced a little 
by her reading and a great deal by her friend 
of some years' standing, Princess Dachkof, she 
is wishful to take part in the artistic, scientific, 
and literary movement which she perceives about 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 335 



her. She flings herself into the meUe with the 
ardour she puts into everything. She becomes a 
writer. She becomes a journalist. But we know 
already the lamentable shipwreck of her liberal 
ideas. And what happens to her ideas happens 
also to her tastes. All the love she may have ever 
had for letters founders in this disaster, which 
even the glory of Voltaire does not survive. 

But let us first look at her tastes. Voltaire 
apart, French literature, the only literature with 
which she is familiar up to a late period of her 
life, is far from attracting her as a whole. She 
makes her selection, and what she selects are 
the works of Le Sage, and those of Moliere and 
Corneille. After studying Voltaire, she has en- 
joyed Rabelais, and even Scarron. But she has 
gone back upon her tastes in this direction, only 
remembering them with a sort of shame that she 
has ever had them. As for Racine, she simply 
does not understand him. He is too literary 
for her. Literature with him is art for art's 
sake, and art for art's sake, to Catherine, is 
nonsense. When she applies herself to the 
task of writing comedies and tragedies, she does 
not for an instant dream of making a work of 
art : what she does is criticism, satire, and, above 
all, politics. She attacks the prejudices and vices 
that she perceives in the morals of the country, 
the ideas, and even the men, that offend her. 
She makes war upon the Martinists, and occa- 
sionally upon the King of Sweden. Literature, 
to her, is merely a branch of her military and 
repressive powers. Rhetoric, for her, does not 
exist : she replaces it by logic and her authority 
as samodierjitsa, ruler of forty millions of men. 



336 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

She, nevertheless, makes a solitary choice in the 
work of Racine : she likes Mithridate. One 
sees why. 

Still her disputatious instincts and her moralis- 
ing intentions come in collision with continual 
obstacles in the surroundings in which she lives. 
The incident in connection with Sedaine is charac- 
teristic in this respect. She had liked Sedaine 
for his simple gaiety, and the easy flow of his 
couplets, so pleasantly brought out by the music 
of Philidor. This pupil of Montesquieu and of 
Voltaire had a taste for comic opera. In 1779 it 
occurred to her to utilise, after her own fashion, 
the talent of the witty and prolific writer. Why 
should he not compose, on her lines, and for her 
theatre at the Hermitage, a comedy which might 
follow up her own satirical pieces? Urged on 
by Grimm, encouraged by Diderot, Sedaine com- 
poses a piece, L Epreiwe Inutile. 'Tell him,' 
writes Catherine immediately to Grimm, * that if 
instead of one, two, or three pieces, he were to 
do a hundred, I would read them all with the 
greatest eagerness. You know that, after the 
Patriarch, there is no one whose writing I like so 
much as Sedaine's.' But Betzky, who has read 
the piece aloud to his august benefactress, is 
much less enthusiastic. He points out 'that the 
piece, if it were played before the court, would 
give umbrage to the spectators, and that the 
master plays a very small part in it.' Catherine 
at first rebukes these timid objections ; she 
intends to have the piece acted, 1 if it were only 
to show that she has more credit herself than 
Raymond.' Betzky insists ; he considers such a 
tentative not merely useless, but dangerous ; and 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 337 



the Empress finally comes round to his point of 
view. She tells Sedaine that she thinks his play 
'good, very good' ; she sends him 12,000 francs 
for his trouble, but she informs him that his 
masterpiece will not be acted, ' from precaution/ 
U Epreuve Inutile does not even receive the 
honours of print. We are unaware if it was pre- 
served in manuscript. 

Some years later a polemical writer of quite 
other range appeared on the scene, before a 
public at first surprised and terrified, but soon in 
great part won over, and doing all that could 
be done to atone for its first scandal by the 
vehemence of its present applause. Catherine 
ranges herself on the side of those whom the 
new work still continues to shock or frighten. 

1 If I ever write a comedy,' she says, ' 1 shall 
certainly not take the Mariage de Figaro as a 
model, for, after Jonathan Wild, I have never 
found myself in such bad company as at this 
celebrated marriage. It is apparently with an 
idea of imitating the ancients that the theatre has 
recurred to this taste, from which it had seemed 
to be purified. The expressions of Moliere 
were free, and bubbled up like effervescence from 
a natural gaiety, but his thought is never vicious, 
while in this popular play the undertone is con- 
stantly unworthy, and it goes on for three hours 
and a half. Besides that, it is a mere web of 
intrigues, in which there is a continual effort, and 
not a scrap of what is natural. I never laughed 
once all the time I was reading it.' 

But Catherine's business is not to play the 
part of a critic, it is to govern Russia, and what 
Russia needed at this period was assuredly not 



338 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

to be set in the van of European progress, intel- 
lectual and artistic ; it was to follow, at a great 
distance, those who were ahead, to try to come 
up with them, not by a servile imitation, but 
doubtless by finding inspiration in them for the 
development of the original resources of the 
national genius. What did Catherine do to help 
on this event, as was her duty and even her 
ambition in the radiant days when she accepted 
the title of ' the Semiramis of the North,' and 
Voltaire declared that the sun seemed to have 
taken to shining on the world from another 
quarter? We hold with those who think that 
the best way of protecting literature that can be 
found by a ruler, is to leave it alone without 
interfering in its concerns. Such was not the 
opinion of Catherine. She washed to assert, in 
this as in all other domains, her personal initia- 
tive and her supreme command. She professed 
in vain to have ' a republican soul ' ; the republic 
of letters was transformed in her eyes into a 
monarchy governed by her despotic will. Did 
she, however, bring to light a force, a glory, or 
did she even aid the outcome of a new period in 
letters, which could balance the merit and the 
reputation of the writers of whom the reign of 
Elizabeth could legitimately boast ? We cannot 
see that she did. No name of the importance 
of Lomonossof and Soumarokof, whose fame 
belongs to the former reign, can be found in hers. 
Catherine confined herself to making the most of 
this heritage, always for her own personal interests, 
which were far from being those of art and 
literature. Lomonossof, now grown old, served 
as a sort of figure-head ; Soumarokof, with his 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 339 

imitations of the French dramatists, was suffi- 
ciently good as a set-off. There was perhaps in 
Dierjavine the making of a great poet ; she sees 
nothing of it in him, and in time he ceases to see 
it in himself. Felitsa, the poem on which his 
literary reputation rests, is merely a pamphlet 
done to order, half panegyric, half satire. The 
panegyric, we need not say, is for the Empress ; 
the satire for the court nobles, to whom Catherine 
desires to read a lesson, and to whom she sends 
copies of the work, with the passages concerning 
them carefully underlined. At the end of the 
reign the author of Felitsa is a mere buffoon, 
wallowing in the antechambers of the favourite, 
Plato Zoubof. The serious rivals of Lomonossof, 
— those who try to react against the current 
of foreign importation, by which Soumarokof is 
carried along, Kherasskof too, in his Rossiade y 
and Bogdanovitch, in his Douchenka, made up 
from the insipidities of the centuries on the 
subject of the loves of Psyche — Kniajnine, Von- 
Visine, Loukine, add some interesting plays to 
the national drama. Kniajnine writes the Fan- 
faron, a comedy which remains one of the classics 
of Russian literature, and, in Vadime a Nov- 
gorod, attempts the historical drama, drawn from 
the fresh sources of national tradition. Von- 
Visine, the Russian Moliere, ridicules in his 
Brigadier the acquirements of Muscovite Tris- 
sotins, founded on the reading of French novels ; 
and, in his Dadais, takes off the educators of 
aristocratic youth, brought at great expense from 
abroad. But this national drama is not that of 
Catherine. She never visits it, until in her later 
years, when the whim takes her, or rather she finds 



34o CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

it good policy, to be interested in the dramatisa- 
tion of scenes taken from the history of the 
country. 

Meanwhile, literature, national or otherwise, 
feels itself so little under her protection, that the 
contributors to the Sobiessiednik, founded by the 
Princess Dachkof, dare not sign their articles, 
even though they are aware that the Empress 
herself is one of their number. They are not 
unwise, if one may recall the fate of Prince 
Bielossielski, who wrote so charming an ' Epistle 
to France,' won so flattering a reply from Voltaire 
on 'the laurels thrown to his compatriots and 
falling back upon himself,' and who, then being 
Minister at Turin, was recalled in disgrace, for no 
reason but that he was a man of wit, that he 
showed it in his despatches, and that he turned 
agreeable verse. Kniajnine, too, knew what it 
cost to cultivate the national drama. His Vadime 
a Novgorod was torn up by order of the 
Empress, and came near being burnt by the 
public executioner. 

An Academy, founded in 1783 on the model of 
the French Academy, under the inspiration of 
the Princess Dachkof, is the sole monument that 
Russian literature owes to a sovereign to whom 
Russia owes so much in other respects. To this 
Academy was confided the mission of fixing the 
rules of orthography, the grammar and prosody, 
of the Russian language, and of encouraging the 
study of history. It began, one need hardly say, 
by undertaking a dictionary, to which Catherine 
herself contributed. 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 



34i 



II 

* Tragedy offends her, comedy bores her, she 
does not care for music, her cuisine is quite 
unstudied ; in gardens she cares only for roses ; 
she has, in short, no taste for anything but for 
building and for domineering over her court — for 
what she has for reigning, and figuring in the 
world, is a passion.' 

It is thus that Durand, the French charge 1 - 
d'affaires, summed up, in 1773, the intellectual 
position of Catherine the Great. His observation 
was correct, especially from the artistic point of 
view. Was it lack of knowledge in her, or lack 
of natural disposition ? It was as much the one 
as the other. She herself was well aware of it. 
In 1767, when Falconet submitted to her judg- 
ment the design for the statue of Peter the Great, 
she excused herself from passing an opinion ; she 
understood nothing about it, and she recom- 
mended the artist to the judgment of his own 
conscience and of posterity. Falconet was foolish 
enough to insist— 

* My posterity is your Majesty. The other 
may come when it will.' 

4 Not at all/ replied Catherine. 1 How can you 
submit yourself to my opinion ? I do not even 
know how to draw. This is perhaps the first 
good statue I have ever seen in my life. The 
merest school-boy knows more about your art 
than I do.' 

We often find in her mouth, and in her writing, 
this parti pris of incompetence and self-abnega- 
tion, so alien from the general tendency of her 
mind and temperament. 



342 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



She has an opera for which the best singers are 
sought all over Europe. She pays heavy incomes 
to the 4 stars,' whose demands at that time were 
without limit. But she acknowledges that all 
this expense is not in the least for her own 
pleasure. ' In music/ she writes, ' I am no more 
advanced than formerly. I can recognise no 
tones but those of my nine dogs, who in turn 
share the honour of being in my room, and 
whose individual voices I can recognise from a 
distance ; the music of Galuppi and Paisiello I 
hear, and I am astonished at the tones that it 
combines, but I cannot recognise them at all.' 

Nevertheless, certain comic operas of Paisiello 
succeed in charming her. She has a sense and 
taste for the grotesque. She is enchanted by the 
Piilmonia, and even remembers some of the airs, 
which she hums over when she happens to meet 
the maestro. 

Sometimes, too, even in the domain of art, 
where she feels so out of place, her despotic 
instincts claim their rights ; and, as if by miracle, 
she has certain inspirations which are not without 
a certain savour. Here is a letter, written at the 
time of her first triumphs over Turkey — 

' Since you speak to me of festivities in honour 
of the peace, listen to what I am going to say, 
and do not believe a word of the absurdities of 
the gazettes. The original project was like that 
of all festivities : temple of Janus, temple of 
Bacchus, temple of the Devil and his grand- 
mother, stupid and intolerable allegories, because 
they were gigantic, and because not to have 
common sense was supposed to be an effort of 
genius. Disgusted with all these fine and mighty 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 343 



plans, which I positively would not have, one fine 
day I summon M. Bajenof, my architect, and I 
say to him : My friend, three versts from the city 
there is a meadow ; imagine that this meadow is 
the Black Sea ; that there are two roads leading 
to it from the city ; well, one of these roads shall 
be the Tanais, the other the Borysthene : at the 
mouth of the first you will build a banqueting- 
hall, that you will name Azof; at the mouth of 
the other you will build a theatre, that you will 
name Kinburn ; you will trace out with sand the 
peninsula of the Crimea ; you will there enclose 
Kertch and Ienicale, as ball-rooms ; on the left of 
the Tanais you will place buffets of wine and 
eatables for the people ; opposite to the Crimea 
you will have illuminations which will represent 
the joy of the two empires over the re-establish- 
ment of peace ; on the other side of the Danube 
you will have the fireworks, and on the land 
which is supposed to be the Black Sea you 
will place illuminated ships and boats ; you will 
garnish the banks of the rivers which serve as 
roads with landscapes, mills, trees, houses, all lit 
up ; and there you will have a fete without any- 
thing imaginary in it, but perhaps as good as 
many others, and much more natural.' 

There is something, indeed, very natural and 
charming in this plan of a fete, but there is also 
a stroke of policy. There is always this in every- 
thing that Catherine thinks and does. All her 
prepossessions, artistic and literary included, tend 
in this direction. She accumulates in her Her- 
mitage considerable artistic collections, but she 
confesses that it is not for love of the things of 
beauty that are heaped up in the galleries and 



344 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



cabinets that she prepares expressly for them. 
One cannot delight in what one does not under- 
stand, and she does not understand in what 
consists the merit of a fine picture or of a fine 
statue. She admits that it is part of the glory of 
a great sovereign to have these things in his 
palace. All her famous predecessors, all the 
monarchs in history whose renown she envies or 
seeks, Louis XIV. at their head, have had them. 
But she hits on a word which, coming from any 
one but herself, would have the air of a cruel 
epigram, but which characterises the purchases, 
very extensive during the first part of her reign 
in particular, to which she submits in order to 
carry out this part of her programme of imperial 
magnificence. 'It is not love of art/ she says, 
' it is voracity. I am not an amateur, I am a 
glutton.' In 1768 she buys for 180,000 roubles 
the famous Dresden gallery of Count Bruhl, ex- 
Minis ter of the King of Poland. In 1772 she 
purchases, at Paris, the Crozat collection. In 
reference to this Diderot writes to Falconet : 
'Ah, my friend Falconet, how things have 
changed ! We sell our pictures and our statues 
in time of peace ; Catherine buys them in time of 
war. The sciences, the arts, taste, and wisdom, 
all make for the North, and barbarism with its 
attendant train comes down upon the South. 
I have just carried through an important affair : 
the acquisition of the collection of Crozat, in- 
creased by his descendants, and known to-day 
under the name of the gallery of the Baron de 
Thiers. There are Raphaels, Guidos, Poussins, 
Van Dycks, Schidones, Carlo Lottis, Rem- 
brandts, Wouvermans, Teniers, etc., to the 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 345 

number of about eleven hundred. It has cost 
her Imperial Majesty 460,000 francs. That is 
not half its value.' 

Her usual good luck accompanied Catherine in 
these proceedings. Three months later, fifty 
pictures of not greater worth were sold for 440,000 
francs at the sale of the Due de Choiseul's 
collection. She herself paid 30,000 francs to 
Mme. Geoffrin for two pictures of Van Loo, La 
Conversation Espagnole and La Lecture Espagnole. 
It is true that this is, perhaps, on her part, a way 
of establishing friendly relations with the in- 
fluential matron, who gains on the bargain two- 
thirds of the amount. She has one misfortune, 
in 177 1, with the Braancamp collection, bought 
in Holland for 60,000 ecus, which goes down on 
the coast of Finland with the vessel that brings 
it. But, says Catherine, there is only 60,000 
ecus lost. She can easily make up for the rest. 
She buys en bloc the engraved gems of the Due 
d'Orleans. Through Grimm and Diderot she 
sends order after order to French artists : from 
Chardin and Vernet she demands landscapes ; 
from Houdon a Diana (which has been refused 
admittance at the Louvre, on the ground that it 
is too little clothed) ; from Vien, a ceiling for the 
grand staircase at Tzarskoie-Sielo ; from the 
painter on enamel, De Mailly, an artistic inkstand 
for the room of the Order of St. George, for 
which he charges 36,000 francs, and which he 
executes very unwillingly, and only on being 
forced to do so by an intervention of Government. 
In 1778 she has copies made at Rome, by 
Gunterberger and Reiffenstein, of the frescoes of 
Raphael in the Vatican ; and she has a gallery 
23 



346 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

erected at the Hermitage with panels of the same 
dimension to receive these copies, which, being- 
done on canvas, have been since utilised in the 
reconstruction of the palace. They can still be 
seen there. In 1790, in sending to Grimm her 
portrait, 'in a fur cap,' she writes : ' Here is some- 
thing for your museum ; mine, at the Hermitage, 
consists of pictures, the panels of Raphael, 38,000 
books, four rooms filled with books and prints, 
10,000 engraved gems, nearly 10,000 drawings, and 
a cabinet of natural history contained in two large 
rooms. All that is accompanied by a charming 
theatre, admirably adapted for seeing and hearing, 
and also as to seating accommodation, and with 
no draughts. My little retreat is so situated that 
to go there and back from my room is just 3000 
paces. There I walk about in the midst of a 
quantity of things that I love and delight in, and 
these winter walks are what keep me in health 
and on foot/ 

All that is her own doing. In accomplishing it 
she has had to fight with serious difficulties, for, 
though she may make gold at will, her power in 
this respect is unlimited only within the limits of 
her empire — outside, the paper money loses too 
much in change. Thus, from the year 1781 she 
feels obliged to use moderation. She writes to 
Grimm : ' I renew my resolution to buy nothing 
more, not a picture, nothing ; I want nothing 
more, and consequently I give up the Correggio of 
"the divine." ' That is indeed a 'glutton's' vow, 
as valid as a drunkard's ! A veritable conflict 
commences, from this moment, in the mind of 
Catherine, between her desires as a collector, now 
a passion with her, and her forced instincts of 



LITERARY AND, ARTISTIC TASTES 347 

economy. It is not the latter that most generally 
win the day. The letter to Grimm that we have 
just cited is dated March 29; on the 14th of 
April we find in the correspondence of the 
Empress with her art-purveyor this passage : 
' If "the divine" [Reiffenstein] would send her, 
direct to St. Petersburg, some very very fine 
old cameos, in one, two, or three colours, in 
perfect state and keeping, we should be infinitely 
obliged to those who would procure them for us. 
That is not to be called a purchase, but what is 
one to do ? ' And on the 23rd she writes : ' Now, 
you may say what you like, you may rail at me 
as you please, but I must have two copies of 
coloured prints, according to the list I am going 
to give you . . . for we are gluttons, and so 
gluttonous for everything of that kind, that there 
is no longer a house in St. Petersburg where one 
can decently live if it does not contain something 
faintly resembling the panels, the Eternal Father, 
or the whole string that I have enumerated.' 

* Lord, one would say that the good resolutions 
of Thine anointed are wavering ! ' observes 
Grimm maliciously in his reply. He has his 
doubts, too, as to what has provoked this return 
of 'gluttony.' In using the collective pronoun 
'us,' Catherine does not use the plural instead of 
the singular by a mere trick of speech. The 
- gluttons ' of whom she speaks are" indeed two at 
present. After the favourite Korssakof, who 
was a mere boor, has come, since the end of 1780, 
the handsome Lanskoi, who is a man of education 
and refined tastes. And the handsome Lanskoi 
has a real passion for prints and cameos. In 
July 1 78 1, sending Grimm new orders for 



348 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



purchases, Catherine explains that these are not 
for her, ' but for gluttons who have become 
gluttons through knowing me.' The money is 
certainly hers, that is to say, Russia's. In 1784 
she renews her resolution of buying nothing more, 
'being poor as church mice/ But Lanskoi 
sends 50,000 francs to Grimm 'for the purchase 
of a cabinet of pictures,' and promises a further 
amount shortly. This new course of things goes 
on for some time. In 1784, it is true, there is a 
momentary pause : Catherine will have no more 
cameos, nor anything of the kind. Lanskoi is 
dead, and with him is dead also the taste for 
things which, as she frankly confesses, she does 
not understand a bit. But in April 1785 it 
begins again. What has happened ? Mamonof 
has taken the place of Lanskoi, and with the 
place he seems to have inherited the artistic 
tastes of the deceased. It is not till 1794 that 
this intermittent fever comes finally to an end. 
* I shall not buy anything more,' says Catherine, 
on January 13. 'I must pay my debts and save 
up money; so refuse all the bargains that are 
offered you.' It is Plato Zoubof who reigns now, 
and Zoubof cares for nothing engraved save the 
gold circles bearing the effigy of his imperial 
mistress. 

Up to now the Empress has not merely been 
increasing her collections; she has also been 
building. We should say, she has especially 
been building. And this time the pleasure has 
all been her own, as Durand intimated in 1773. 
We have seen what the Prince de Ligne thought 
of the sovereign's taste and knowledge in regard 
to architecture. But in default of judgment and 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 349 

sense of proportion she has at least plenty of 
spirit. She replaces artistic sense by enthusiasm, 
and quality by quantity. 'You know,' she 
writes in 1779, 'that the mania of building is 
stronger with us than ever, and no earthquake 
ever demolished so many buildings as we have 
set up.' She adds in German these sad re- 
flections : ' The mania of building is an infernal 
thing; it runs away with money, and the more 
one builds, the more one wants 'to build ; it is a 
disease, like drunkenness/ 

At this moment she sends to Rome for two 
architects — -Giacomo Trombara and Geronino 
Quarenghi. She thus explains her choice : ' 1 
want Italians because our Frenchmen know too 
much, and make horrid houses, inside and out, 
because they know too much/ Always the same 
contempt for care, the same penchant for impro- 
visation! She nevertheless frequently consults 
the learned Clerisseau, who sends her plans of 
palaces in the Roman style. Perronnet furnishes 
her with the scheme of a bridge over the Neva ; 
Bourgeois de Chateaublanc, another of a light- 
house for the shores of the Baltic. In 1765 she 
demands of Vasse a design for an audience- 
chamber 120 feet long and 62 high. 

With all that, does she give good cause to 
artists, whether architects, painters, or sculptors, 
to praise her treatment of them ? Let us not ask 
Falconet, on his return from St. Petersburg ; his 
reply would be too bitter. We shall have to speak 
elsewhere of the visit to the capital of the North of 
the man to whom the city of Peter the Great and 
of Catherine owes to this very moment its finest 
ornament. We shall try also to show what were 



350 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

his relations with the sovereign, beginning, on her 
part, with more than courtesy, and ending with 
more than indifference. Let us say here that, 
not having the least comprehension of artistic 
things, Catherine could not in any way be likely 
to understand the soul of an artist. Falconet 
pleased her at first by his original and somewhat 
paradoxical turn of mind, still more perhaps by 
the oddities of his disposition ; she soon grew 
tired, and finally impatient of him. He was 
too much of an artist for her liking. She had 
always her own way of interpreting the part to 
be played in the world by the men of talent 
whom she wished to employ in improving her 
capital. She frankly confesses it in one of her 
letters to Grimm : ' Si il signor marchese del 
Grimmo volio mi fare [sic] a pleasure, he will 
have the goodness to write to the divine Reif- 
fenstein to look me out two good architects, 
Italians by birth and skilled in their profession, 
whom he will engage in the service of her Imperial 
Majesty of Russia for so many years, and whom 
he will send from Rome to St. Petersburg like a 
bundle of tools! Tools— it is just that ; tools that 
one uses, and then throws away when they are 
done with, or one finds better and handier ones 
at hand. It was thus that she did with Falconet. 
She gives this further piece of advice to Grimm : 
• He will choose honest and reasonable people, 
not dreamers like Falconet ; people who walk on 
the earth, not in the air/ She will have nothing 
aspiring. 1 A Michael Angelo/ it has been justly 
said, * would never have remained three weeks at 
the court of Catherine/ To remain there nearly 
twelve years, required in Falconet an extra- 



LITERARY AND ARTISTIC TASTES 351 



ordinary power of resistance, and a veritable 
passion for the work he had begun, into which he 
had put all his soul. But when at last he went, 
he was broken down. Apart from him, Catherine 
did not keep by her any foreign artists who were 
not mediocrities : Brompton, an English painter, 
a pupil of Mengs, and Koenig, a German sculp- 
tor. Brompton paints allegories which delight 
the sovereign, for they are political allegories. 
1 He has painted my two grandsons, and it is a 
charming picture : the elder amuses himself by 
cutting the Gordian knot, and the other has 
proudly put the flag of Constantine about his 
shoulders.' Koenig does a bust of Patiomkine. 
Mme. Vigee-Lebrun, arriving at St. Petersburg 
in 1795 with an achieved reputation, meets with 
a flattering reception everywhere but at the court 
— Catherine finds little pleasure in her society, 
and considers her pictures so bad ' that one must 
have a very distorted sense of things to paint like 
that.' 

And the Russian artists — what does she do in 
this respect? Does she try to discover native 
talent, to encourage it, and bring it to the front ? 
The list of national glories, contemporaneous 
with her reign, is easy to establish in this sphere. 
There is Scorodoumof, an engraver, who had 
studied art in France, and whom she sent for at 
Paris in 1782, in order to take him into her 
service ; and whom a traveller, Fortia de Piles, 
found, a few years later, in an empty studio, 
engaged in polishing a copper plate for a wretched 
design done to order : he explained that there 
was not a workman in St. Petersburg capable of 
doing this kind of work ; was astonished that a 



352 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

stranger took any interest in what he was doing ; 
was quite resigned to the low uses of his pro- 
fession. There is Choubine, a sculptor, dis- 
covered by the same visitor in a narrow room, 
without models, without pupils, with only one 
order, a bust, for which an admiral has offered 
him 100 roubles, the marble itself costing 80 
roubles, which he has to take out of the price. 
There is, lastly, the painter Lossienko. Here is 
what Falconet says of him : ' The poor fellow, 
starving and in the depths of misery, wishing to 
live anywhere but at St. Petersburg, came and 
told me all his troubles ; then, sinking into drunk- 
enness in his despair, he little knew what he 
would gain by dying : we read on his tombstone 
that he was a great man / ' 

The glory of Catherine wanted one great man 
the more, and she had him cheaply. The artist 
once dead, she willingly added his apotheosis 
to all her grandeurs. She had not taken any 
pains to keep him alive. All her artistic ideas 
reduce themselves, in the last resort, to a question 
of show. And, for this object, the * divine' 
Reiffenstein, whose name is known all over 
Europe, is obviously worth more than the poor 
Lossienko, though he was no more than a good 
copyist. National art, in short, owes to Catherine 
some models furnished by her to the study and 
emulation of Russian artists. Beyond that, she 
did not give it so much as a morsel of bread. 



CATHERINE AS A WRITER 353 



CHAPTER II 

CATHERINE AS A WRITER 
I 

Durand certainly made a mistake in his reckon- 
ing when giving his list of the things in which 
Catherine took pleasure. He forgot one at least 
of her favourite pastimes : she liked to write. 
We do not believe there was anything she liked 
so much. It was not only a taste in her — it was 
in some sort a necessity, almost a physical neces- 
sity. It seems that the mere fact of holding a 
pen in her hand, and having before her a white 
sheet of paper, on which she can set her fancy 
roving, gives her a pleasant sensation, not only 
mental, but like a thrill of physical delight. She 
says herself, in one of her letters to Grimm, that 
the sight of a new pen makes her fingers itch. 
She never dictates. ' I do not know how to 
dictate/ she says. All that she writes is written 
with her own hand, and what does she not write ? 
Besides her political correspondence, which is 
very active, and her private correspondence, 
which, with the enormous budgets sent regularly 
to Grimm, attains huge proportions ; besides her 
work in regard to signatures, to reports sent in 
to her, which she covers with marginal notes, to 
her dramatic and other compositions, she writes 
much and often for herself, for her own satisfac- 
tion, sometimes for no apparent reason, unless for 
that of calming that itching of the fingers. She 



354 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

makes extracts from old chronicles relating to the 
life and glorious actions of St. Sergius, in which 
we cannot imagine that she has any particular 
interest. She works at copying the old church 
Sclavonic, an acquaintance with which would not 
seem to be indispensable to her duties as Orthodox 
sovereign. She cannot read a book without 
covering the margins with her great scrawling 
writing She draws up plans for fetes and pro- 
grammes for concerts. Contrary to that statesman 
of our days who could only think when he was 
talking, one might say of her that she could only 
think when writing. So, like the other with his 
words, she was carried away by what she wrote. 
Her pen ran away with her thought, and sent it 
astray. She was well aware of it herself. She 
wrote to Grimm — 

4 I was going to say that I would write for you, 
so much in the scribbling mood am I ; but I 
recollect that I am here and you in Paris. I 
advise you to dictate, for I have been advised a 
hundred times to do so myself : happy is the 
man who can do so ; for my part, it would be 
impossible to talk nonsense with the pen of 
another. ... If I said to this other what flows 
from my pen, he would often not write what I 
said/ 

How does she find the time to write all that 
she writes ? She rises at six o'clock in the 
morning to chat at her ease with her confidant, 
pen in hand. Despite these laborious habits, the 
question remains for us an enigma. On May 7, 
1767, the Empress, on a voyage of inspection, 
finds herself on the Volga in ' frightful ' weather. 
She takes the opportunity to write a long letter 



CATHERINE AS A WRITER 355 

to Marmontel, who has just sent her his Bdlisaire. 
It is miraculous. Note that, thinking and writing 
being the same thing to her, and her inaptitude 
to precede the manual labour of putting things 
down by the intellectual labour of putting them 
together being complete, she goes over and 
over again anything to which she attaches much 
importance. We have thus two rough drafts of 
a letter addressed by her in 1768 to the Aca- 
demy of Berlin, which had offered her the title 
of honorary member. She sometimes makes 
more, for she does not like erasures. If the 
expression or the phrase which comes up does 
not suit her, she throws aside the sheet — 
generally a large-sized sheet, gilt-edged — and 
begins over again. 

Her phraseology is at times very happy, trans- 
lating her thought with a single vigorous or 
picturesque expression. In refusing to evacuate 
the Crimea, as the cowardice of Patiomkine ad- 
vises her in 1788, and looking for arguments to 
justify her decision, she writes : ' Does a man 
who is in the saddle get down in order to hold 
on to the horse's tail?' Her letters, especially 
her letters to Grimm, are full, at the same time, 
of words and turns of phrase in which the 
bonhomie and carelessness of thought and lan- 
guage alike are unbounded, and sometimes be- 
come positively gross. Not content with inter- 
larding her incorrect French with German or 
Italian words and phrases, she often writes in 
slang. She puts ' sti-la ' for 1 celui-la,' 1 ma ' for 
' mais.' Probably she speaks in the same way. 
She is not averse from a certain triviality. We 
shall not venture to reproduce here the gaul- 



356 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

oiseries — are they indeed gauloiseries ? — which 
sometimes crop up when she is in the jocose and 
familiar vein, and we should certainly tire or 
even disgust our readers with the quips and 
quibbles which she is for ever sprinkling over 
her epistolary conversation. 

It is true that this is her 'undress' style, her 
language of asides. Let us see now what is her 
style as a writer, her way of writing for the 
public. 

ii 

It is in her works written for the stage that 
the pen of Catherine is most prolific. She does 
something of everything in literature, but espe- 
cially dramatic writing. 

'You ask me,' she writes to Grimm, 'why I 
write so many comedies. I will reply, like 
M. Pince, with three reasons : primo, because it 
amuses me ; secundo, because I should like to 
restore the national theatre, which, owing to its 
lack of new plays, is somewhat gone out of 
fashion ; and tertio, because it was time to put 
down the visionaries who were beginning to hold 
up their heads. Le Trompeur and Le Trompi 
have had a prodigious success. . . . The most 
amusing part of it is that at the first performance 
there were cries of " Author ! " who, however, 
kept completely incognito, despite his huge 
success. Each of these pieces has brought in, 
at Moscow, 10,000 roubles to the management.' 

It is not needful, we see, to be an author 
played at Paris to secure the welcome that a 
happy idea always receives from the public, and 



CATHERINE AS A WRITER 357 

the imperial diadem does not preclude happy 
ideas. 

In Le Trompeur and Le Trompd Catherine 
has brought Cagliostro and his dupes on the 
stage. The greater part of her plays are thus 
polemical or satirical, philosophical, social, or 
religious. She bravely attacks the ideas or 
tendencies, or even persons, that she disapproves 
of or dislikes. One may say that she has put 
into them her best work as a writer. She has, 
nevertheless, not the least sense of the dramatic. 
The dramatic element, properly speaking, is 
absent from her comedies as from her serious 
dramas. There is no art of composition, no 
knowledge of effect, no creative faculty, not a 
type among all these characters ; but here and 
there certain traits caught sur le vif in the 
manners of the country, a certain wit, good- 
humour, and a real gift of observation. The 
general tendency is that of Voltaire, toned down 
by the respect of certain sentiments, the religious 
sentiment among others, which she is obliged to 
treat so carefully in the surroundings in which she 
is placed. The principal aim is to oppose the 
current of mysticism which begins to penetrate 
the upper strata of society, finding in the natural 
leanings of the Russian mind an element highly 
favourable to its propagation. It is with Free- 
masonry and Martinism that she has most often 
a bone to pick. One day she assimilates the 
Freemasons to the Siberian sect of Chamanes^ 
whom she tries to turn into ridicule by accusing 
them of extorting money from the weak-witted 
folk on whose credulity they trade. This is the 
theme of Chamane Sibirski (Chamane of Siberia), 



358 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



a piece for which an article in the Encyclopedic 
(Theosophy) has furnished her with the canvas ; 
it is also that of Obmanchtchik (The Deceiver), 
and Obolchtchenie (The Deceit). But she also 
attacks occasionally other errors and absurdities. 
One of the characters of O Vremia ! (translated 
into French under the title, O temps ! O mceurs /), 
Madame Hanjahina, in the fervour of her religious 
devotion, is in the act of performing fifty genu- 
flections before a holy image. A peasant enters, 
and, after kissing his mistress's feet, puts a paper 
into her hand. How dare he trouble her at such 
a moment. ' Leave me, demon, imp of hell ! ' 
she cries. ' Fear the wrath of God, and mine/ 
She nevertheless glances at the paper: it is a 
petition, on the part of a lover who wishes to 
marry, and who, in his capacity of serf, requires 
the authorisation of his mistress. 'The idea of 
coming and disturbing with such requests a pro- 
prietress of serfs, who is at her devotions ! ' 
Mme. Hanjahina turns the luckless importunate 
out of doors, and returns to her genuflections. 
But she has lost the reckoning. Must she do 
them all over again? She begins the task, but 
before beginning she summons her people, and 
orders them to give fifty times fifty blows to the 
peasant, who must have been sent by Satan him- 
self, and who shall never marry, let him be 
assured of that, as long as she lives and continues 
to reverence the holy images. 

Catherine also, it appears, wrote fiction. In 
the third volume of his History of German 
Literature^ Kurtz includes the Empress among 
the number of German writers of the eighteenth 
century, as author of an Eastern romance, 



CATHERINE AS A WRITER 



359 



Obidach, written in 1786. He attributes to her 
several other works in her mother tongue, of 
which he does not mention the titles. 

We have also some fragments of the Empress's 
work as a fabulist. In writing for her grand- 
children one of the tales that Grimm published 
for the first time in 1 790, in his Correspondence, 
Catherine was a little out of her reckoning. The 
Tsarevitch Cklore, as well as the Tsarevitck Febei, 
are philosophical tales in the style of Voltaire, 
with allegorical turns, moralising intentions, and 
scientific pretensions, quite out of the range of 
childish minds. Catherine had, nevertheless, 
what we now call ' a knowledge of children,' the 
art of putting herself on the level of young, fresh, 
naive imaginations ; she had also a love of 
children. But, pen in hand, she sometimes 
forgot what she knew the best. Nor has she 
given evidence, in these compositions, of much 
fertility of invention, or of a particularly in- 
genious turn of mind, or an original inspiration. 
She has once again stolen some one's ideas — 
those of Jean-Jacques and of Locke this time. 

Finally, Catherine has had her poetical 
moments. The taste came to her late in life. 
'Imagine,' she writes in 1787, to Grimm, 4 that 
on my galley, going down the Borysthene, he 
"the Comte de Segur] wanted to teach me to 
write verse ! I have been rhyming for the last 
four days, but it takes too much time, and I have 
begun too late.' Nevertheless, the year before, 
she had already asked Chrapowicki to send her a 
dictionary of Russian rhymes, if there was one in 
existence. 

We do not know what success attended her 



360 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

secretary's researches in this direction, but after 
1788 we often enough find the Empress rhym- 
ing, both in Russian and in French. In August 
1788 she writes burlesque verses on the King 
of Sweden, while composing a French comedy, 
Les Voyages de Madame Bonternps, which she 
intends to have acted, by way of surprise, in 
the apartments of the favourite Mamonof on his 
birthday. In January 1789 she- sends to Chrapo- 
wicki two Russian quatrains on the taking of 
Otchakof. One of them is somewhat remark- 
able for its vigour of thought and the energy of 
some expressions. As for the poetic form, it 
escapes our estimation. Here is a French qua- 
train, without date, which will permit the reader 
to see for himself the skill of Catherine in this 
branch of literature. It is an epitaph composed 
by her on the occasion of the death of the Count 
I. I. Chouvalof, who, since 1777, had been the 
Empress's high chamberlain— 

' Ci git 

Monseigneur le grand chambellan 
A cent ans blanc comme Milan : 
Le voila qui fait la moue ; 
Vivant il grattait la joue. 5 

We shall doubtless be excused from giving 
more. 

Catherine also undertook to translate the 
Iliad. Three sheets of attempts in her hand- 
writing are preserved in the archives of the 
empire. Certainly^ she attempted many things. 



CATHERINE AND EDUCATION 361 



CHAPTER III 

CATHERINE AND EDUCATION 
I 

The institutions founded by Catherine for the 
furtherance of national education, her educational 
ideas and writings, hold too large a place in the 
history of her reign, and in that of the intellectual 
development of her people, for us to omit some 
consideration of them in this study, brief as must 
be the space that we can give them. On arriving 
at power, Catherine was quick to see what ad- 
vantage she had derived, in the struggle from 
which she had come out victorious, from the 
superiority of her intellectual culture, the relative 
extent and variety of her knowledge. At the 
same time, she was able to judge how much it 
cost in Russia, even on the throne, to arrive at 
the little knowledge that she possessed. Finally, 
the handling of power must soon have shown 
her the enormous difficulties that the best-inten- 
tioned rulers have always had to meet with from 
the ignorance of their subjects. The reform, or 
rather the establishment, of national education is, 
from the first, one of the principal ideas brought 
by the Empress to the government of her empire. 
In this regard she had everything, or almost 
everything, to do. The lower classes did not 
count, the middle class hardly existed ; there 
was therefore nothing to do but to raise the level 
of studies at the summit of the social ladder. 
24 



362 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



But this level was terribly low. The children 
of the nobility were brought up by serfs or by 
foreign tutors. We can guess what they had to 
learn from the former ; as for the latter, we can 
guess also what sort of people they were — French 
for the most part — who at that time entered upon 
the career of private tutor in the far-distant 
Russia. Mehee de la Touche tells the story 
of the governess who, being asked by the 
parents of her future charge if she spoke French, 
replied: ' Sacrddid ! I should think so; it is my 
own language.' She was engaged without further 
question; only, the name of Mile. Sacredie always 
stuck to hen 

As ever, Catherine would do everything, and 
everything at once. In the second year of her reign, 
Betzky, the collaborator whom she picked out for 
this purpose, received the order to set to work 
on a project, which included a whole new system 
of education, able to serve as basis for a number 
of scholastic institutions, to be set on foot sub- 
sequently. The result was the publication, in 
1764, of General Regulations for the Education 
of Children of both Sexes. Betzky has admitted 
that the ideas developed in this document were 
those of the Empress herself. They must be 
considered bold, if not original : they are more 
or less those of Locke and of Jean- Jacques 
Rousseau ; those of Jean- Jacques especially, little 
as Catherine generally professed to think of his 
genius. It was a project for fabricating men and 
women not in the least like any that had ever 
been seen in Russia, taken radically away from 
the soil which had given them birth, transplanted 
from their natural surroundings, and developed 



CA THERINE AND EDUCA TION 363 

in an atmosphere artificially prepared for the 
culture to which they were destined. They were 
to be taken at the age of five or six, kept strictly 
shut up, and removed from all outside influence, 
to the age of twenty or more. 

Catherine seriously thought of carrying out this 
programme. If this was not done, at least within 
the desired limits and proportions — that is to say, 
throughout the whole length and breadth of public 
education — it is because she encountered great 
difficulties on the way, and that here, too, patience, 
firmness of resolution, and continuity of effort 
were once again lacking to her will. Difficulties 
arose at the outset from the opposition that she 
met with, not only in her immediate surroundings 
— but little enlightened itself, as a rule, and con- 
sequently indifferent, if not hostile, to the develop- 
ment of any programme whatever, relating to this 
order of ideas — but also among even the most 
open-minded and cultivated of those to whom she 
could appeal, outside the official sphere, for some 
amount of help in her enterprise. The ideas of 
Jean- Jacques w r ere by no means those of Novikof, 
for example, nor those of the circle in which the 
influence of the publicist was exercised. Now, 
this was perhaps the most intelligent circle in 
the Russia of that time. Novikof had pedagogic 
views of his own, entirely different, giving a large 
place, in national education, to local feeling, to 
custom, tradition, to the ways of the country, 
averse from the introduction of foreign elements. 
As for the officials at Catherine's disposal, they 
were inclined to ask whether public education, 
and schools in general, were of any real value. 
In 1785, at one of the Empress's evening recep- 



364 CATHERINE IT, OF RUSSIA 

tions, as Patiomkine was discussing the necessity 
of starting a large number of universities through- 
out Russia, Zavadofski, the director of the 
recently established normal schools, observed that 
the University of Moscow had not produced a 
single distinguished man in science during the 
whole of its existence. 'That/ replied Patiom- 
kine, 1 is because you hindered me from continuing 
my studies by turning me out/ This was a fact ; 
the favourite had been sent down, and obliged to 
enter a regiment, which was the beginning of his 
fortune. He forgot to say that his idleness and 
misconduct had quite justified the punishment. 
Catherine thereupon declared that she herself 
owed much to the university education : since she 
had had in her service some men who had carried 
out their studies at Moscow, she had been able to 
make out something in the memoranda and other 
official documents presented for her signature. 
It was after this conversation that she decided 
upon founding the Universities of Nijni-Nov- 
gorod, and Iekatierinoslaf. But the latter town 
had itself yet to be founded. 

Another difficulty presented itself in the selec- 
tion of a staff of teachers. In organising the 
establishment of the corps of cadets, Betzky 
took for director a former prompter from the 
French theatre, and for inspector of classes a 
former valet de chambre of Catherines mother. 
One of the professors, Faber, had been a lackey 
in the service of two other French professors, 
Pictet and Mallet, whose colleague he now 
became. Pictet and Mallet having ventured to 
protest, Betzky contented himself with giving 
Faber the rank of lieutenant in the Russian army, 



CATHERINE AND EDUCATION 365 

which, it appeared, put things straight. The 
master of police in the establishment was a 
certain Lascaris, a mere adventurer, who after- 
wards became director, with the title of lieutenant- 
colonel. 

The greatest liberty reigned in this school, if 
we may believe the testimony of Bobrinski, the 
natural son of Catherine, who was brought up 
there : the ideas of Jean- Jacques were liberally 
applied. 

Catherine was thus forced to complicate her 
programme of scholastic organisation ; she had 
first to think of training the masters for the future 
pupils that she meant to intrust to them. She 
sent to Oxford, to the Academy of Turin, to the 
schools in Germany, young men who were to be 
prepared for the delicate duties of professorship. 
But many other things were yet wanting for the 
founding of national schools, and first, to know 
how to set about it. She confessed it naively to 
Grimm- 

' Listen a moment, my philosophical friends ; 
you would be charming, adorable, if you would 
have the charity to map out a plan of study for 
young people, from A B C to the University. I 
am told that there should be three kinds of 
schools, and I who have not studied and have not 
been at Paris, I have neither knowledge nor 
insight in the matter, and consequently I know 
not what should be learnt, nor even what can be 
learnt, nor where one is to find out unless from 
you. I am very much concerned about an idea 
for a university and its management, a gym- 
nasium and its management, a school and its 
management. ? 



366 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



She intimates, however, the means by which 
she intends to get over the difficulty for the 
present— 

* Until you accede or do not accede to my 
request, I know what I shall do : I shall hunt 
through the Encyclopedic. Oh, I shall be 
certain to haul out what I want and what I don't 
want.' 

The philosophers remaining silent, it is the ■ 
Encyclopedic that has to afford matter for the 
conceptions to which the universal genius of 
Catherine betakes itself, in this new order of 
things. 

ii 

These conceptions were destined to remain 
sterile, with one exception. Some scholastic 
establishments date, it is true, from her reign, 
But these are special schools, that, for instance, 
of artillery and engineering, founded in 1762, 
the school of commerce founded in 1772, the 
academy of mines in 1773, the academy of 
Beaux Arts in 1774. In 1781 there was even an 
attempt at popular schools, and in 1783 Jankovitz 
was summoned for the foundation of normal 
schools, after the order of those in Austria. Ten 
were at once founded at St. Petersburg, and the 
following year they had 1000 pupils. Catherine 
was full of enthusiasm on the subject, and wrote 
to Grimm : ' Do you know that we are really 
doing fine things, and getting along famously, 
not in the air (for, from dread of fire, I have 
expressly forbidden aerostatic globes) but ventre 
a terre, for the enlightening of the people.' 



CA THERINE AND ED UCA TION 367 

In reply Grimm conferred upon the sovereign the 
title of Universal-norrnalschulmeisterin. 

But all that was not the national education 
according to Locke and Jean-Jacques, of which 
the Empress dreamed, and which ought, she 
thought, to regenerate Russia. The dream was 
unrealised save in the establishment founded in 
1764 for the education of girls, in the famous 
Smolnyi Monastyr, which was one of the favourite 
achievements of Catherine, the one among all 
others to which she was most constant ; the 
majestic edifice on the banks of the Neva is even 
now the admiration of travellers from the West. 
Demoiselles nobles are still educated there in the 
most careful manner, and but lately the two 
daughters of the Prince of Montenegro grew up 
within these walls, where so often the Empress 
was to be seen surrounded by her pupils, 
following their studies with solicitude, and in- 
teresting herself in their recreations. Rigorous 
seclusion, during twelve years, the removal of all 
outside influences, even family influences, even 
religious influences : all the details of the plan 
sketched out in 1764 were to be found in the 
scheme of this institution. No one was allowed 
to go out, except to go to the court, whither the 
Empress frequently summoned the scholars 
whom she had particularly noticed. There were 
hardly any holidays. Every six weeks the 
parents were admitted to see their children, and 
to witness a public examination which showed 
what progress they were making. That was all. 
The lay schoolmistresses never spoke to their 
pupils of God or the Devil save in general terms, 
without any attempt at proselytism ; the clergy 



368 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



were admitted to this singular monastery, and 
to some part in the instruction given there, but 
within prescribed limits. It was a convent having 
as abbess a philosophising Empress ; monastic 
life with a door of communication opening on the 
splendours and seductions of the imperial palace ; 
St. Cyr, minus Christianity, and not merely the 
severe and gloomy Christianity of Madame de 
Maintenon, but Christianity in general. A long- 
bearded pope was sometimes seen there ; the 
Christian teaching was absent. The very plan 
of the establishment was alien to it, for could 
anything be more absolutely contrary to its spirit 
than the separation into two divisions of the 
inmates, kept absolutely apart and distinct, by 
the very first principles of the undertaking ? In 
this establishment, in which there is room for 500 
pupils, there are daughters of the nobility and of 
the middle classes. They have nothing in com- 
mon one with another, either in mode of living, 
of education, or even of costume. The former 
are indulged with fine clothes, the refinements of 
the toilette, of the table, and of accommodation, a 
course of study in which the arts of pleasing hold 
a large place ; the latter have to put up with a 
coarse kind of clothing, with simple dishes, with 
lessons in sewing, washing, and cooking. The 
colour of the clothes is the same, but the ' corset ' 
takes the place of the elegant 'fourreau,' and is com- 
pleted by a pinafore, which denotes the humility 
of their condition. All that is Pagan, utterly 
Pagan, as is the plan of the teaching itself, into 
which Diderot would have wished to introduce 
thorough instruction in anatomy ; as are the sallies 
into the frivolous and corrupt world of the court. 



CATHERINE AND EDUCATION 369 

As it has been noted, Catherine is the first 
Russian sovereign to give attention to the educa- 
tion of women. She gave to her undertaking 
all the breadth and magnificence that we find in 
all her creations, and that would seem to be in 
some sort the natural emanation of herself. But 
she also put to proof principles which she had 
not sufficiently gauged. The germs that she thus 
introduced into the intellectual and moral develop- 
ment of her sex still bear fruit in Russia, not 
perhaps always for the best. 

We have had means of judging, in the 
Empress's confidences to Grimm, what point she 
had reached, after fifteen years of sway, in her 
own studies and notions in regard to this delicate 
and difficult matter : she obviously went right 
ahead, picking up principles and ideas for her 
plans of education as she picked up soldiers for 
her plans of conquest. In the very numerous 
writings on educational subjects that she has 
handed down to posterity, some ideas and in- 
genious intuitions alternate with the most para- 
doxical assertions, as, for example, that ' the 
study of languages and sciences ought to hold 
the last place in education,' or that 'the health of 
the body and the inclination of the mind towards 
what is good make up the whole of education.' 
The idea of enlightened despotism, coming out 
in the blind subjection of pupil to master, accords 
as best it can with that of the progressive develop- 
ment of the spirit of independence, in which one 
is to endeavour to fortify the child's mind. As 
a whole it is almost incoherent. Catherine saw 
clearly that the way in which the youth of 
Russia in her time was educated was useless 



37o CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

alike to them and to Russia, and she admitted 
the necessity of a change of system, as an abso- 
lute necessity of national progress. It was only 
on this one point that she had quite made up 
her mind. At her time, and in the place that 
she occupied, coming after Ann, Elizabeth, and 
Peter III., it was something already to have made 
this discovery and cherished this conviction. But 
the glory of having been the founder of the 
national education was not to be hers. The 
judgment of posterity has given this title to a 
name more humble than hers, that of a man 
whom she treated as a foe, to whom she gave 
a dungeon and a chain as the reward of the 
labours of which Russia reaps the benefit to-day. 
It was in the educational establishments founded 
at St. Petersburg by Novikof that the programme 
of studies and the plan of scholastic organisation 
now in force throughout the empire were really 
mapped out 



BOOK IV 



INNER ASPECTS 
CHAPTER I 

HOME LIFE 
I 

We shall try to give an account of a single day 
in the life of the Empress, an ordinary day, one 
of those which show the habitual course of her 
existence. We are in winter, let us suppose, 
and about the middle of the reign, in 1785 for 
example, a year of peace. The Empress occu- 
pies the Zimnyi Dvariets, the Winter Palace. 
The private suite of rooms, on the first story, 
is not very large. On mounting the little stair- 
case, we come to a room in which a table, 
covered with writing materials, awaits the secre- 
taries and others employed in her Majesty's 
immediate service. We pass through this first 
room, and enter the dressing-room, whose win- 
dows look out on the square of the palace. 
It is there that the Empress's hair is dressed 
before a small circle of intimate friends and high 
functionaries, admitted to the early morning 
audiences. It is the petit lever of her Majesty. 
There is no grand lever. Two doors open 

371 



372 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

before us : one leads to the Diamond Room, the 
other to the bedroom. The bedroom communi- 
cates at the back with a private dressing-room, 
and at the left with a work-room opening on the 
Mirror Room, and the other reception-rooms. 

It is six o'clock in the morning, the hour at 
which the Empress rises. By the side of her 
bed is a basket, where, on a couch of pink satin 
ornamented with lace, sleeps a whole family of 
little dogs, Catherine's inseparable companions. 
They are English greyhounds. In 1770 Dr. 
Dimsdale, whom the Empress, as we know, sum- 
moned from London to inoculate her, brought 
over for her a couple of these creatures. They 
have increased and multiplied, so that one sees 
a greyhound in all the aristocratic houses in St. 
Petersburg. The Empress always has half a 
dozen about her, sometimes more. The bell- 
ringer of the palace having rung the hour of 
six, Maria Savichna Pierekousihina, the head 
femme de chambre of her Majesty, enters the 
bedroom. Formerly Catherine had no one about 
her at this time ; she rose by herself, and in 
winter even lit her own fire. Time has changed 
this habit. But to-day her Majesty is late 
in waking. The night before she was not so 
early as usual in going to bed ; an interesting 
conversation detained her at the Hermitage 
after ten. Maria Savichna coolly finds a divan, 
opposite to the sovereign's bed, lies down on it, 
and seizes the happy chance of a little additional 
nap. But now the Empress awakens. She gets 
up, and in her turn awakens the slumbering 
Maria Savichna. She goes into her dressing- 
room. A little warm water to rinse out her 



HOME LIFE 



373 



mouth, and a little ice to rub over her face, are 
all that her Majesty is in need of for the 
moment. But where is Catherine Ivanovna, 
the young Calmuck, whose business it is to have 
these things ready? She is always behind her 
time, this Catherine Ivanovna! What, already 
a quarter past six ! The Empress has a move- 
ment of impatience ; she taps her foot nervously 
on the ground. Here she is at last : beware of 
her Majesty's wrath ! Catherine snatches from 
her hands the silver-gilt ewer, and, hastily 
making use of it, she apostrophises the lazy 
girl— 

'What are you thinking about, Catherine 
Ivanovna? Do you think you will always be 
able to go on like this ? One day you will get 
married, you will leave my service, and your 
husband, be sure, will not be like me. He will 
be much more particular. Think of your future, 
Catherine Ivanovna ! ' 

That is all, and that is repeated day after day. 
Meanwhile the Empress goes briskly into her 
work-room, followed by her dogs, who have 
waited till now to leave their luxurious bed. 
It is time for ddjeuner. The coffee is waiting : 
good. Is it strong enough ? It needs a pound 
of coffee for the five cups that the Empress is 
accustomed to take. One day one of her secre- 
taries, a certain Kozmine, coming to make his 
report, is benumbed with the cold. The Empress 
rings. ' A cup of coffee for the poor shivering 
wretch ! ' She insists on his swallowing the 
steaming cup at a draught. But what is the 
matter ? He is unwell ; he has palpitations of 
the heart. He has had the coffee that is pre- 



374 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

pared for her Majesty, and which she alone 
can drink. It never occurred to any one that 
the cup was for the secretary ; who could imagine 
that her Majesty would share her dtjeuner with 
a mere tchinovnik like him ? Generally Catherine 
only shares her dejeuner with her dogs. The 
imperial coffee is not in their line ; but there is 
thick cream, biscuits, sugar. The whole con- 
tents of the sugar-basin go to them, and the 
biscuits too. 

Her Majesty has now no further need of any 
one. If her dogs want to go out, she opens the 
door for them herself. She wishes to be alone, 
and to give herself entirely to her work or 
correspondence, till nine o'clock. But where is 
her favourite snuff-box, which should always be 
on her work-table ? A portrait of Peter the 
Great, which is on the cover, is there, she says, to 
remind her that she has to continue the work of 
the Great Czar. Catherine takes a great deal of 
snuff. But she never carries a snuff-box. There 
must be one at hand in every corner of her 
palace. She uses only a particular kind of 
tobacco that is specially grown for her in her 
garden of Tzarskoie-Sielo. When writing, she 
needs to take snuff almost all the time. She 
rings. 'Will you kindly,' she says to a valet de 
chambre who enters, 'look for my snuff-box.' 
'Veuillez,' 4 Prenez la peine de,' are formulas 
that she invariably uses in speaking to the 
people about her, however humble. 

At nine precisely Catherine returns to her 
bedroom. It is there that she receives the 
officials who come to give in their report. The 
prefect of police enters first Her Majesty is 



HOME LIFE 



375 



dressed, at this moment, in a white dressing- 
gown of gros de Tours, with large folds. She 
wears a cap of white crape, which the vigour of 
her work or the excitement of her conversation 
with Grimm has accidentally pushed aside, to 
right or left. Her complexion is fresh, her eyes 
bright ; nevertheless, in reading the papers pre- 
sented for her signature, she puts on glasses. 

' You don't need this, do you ? ' she says to her 
secretary Gribofski. ' How old are you ? ' 

' Twenty-six.' 

'You have not had time, as I have, to lose 
your sight in the service of the empire.' 

On entering, Gribofski has bowed very low. 
The Empress has replied with a slight inclination 
of the head, after which, with an amiable smile, 
she lends her hand to the secretary. At this 
moment Gribofski can notice that a front tooth 
is missing from the otherwise well-furnished 
mouth of the sovereign. On stooping to kiss 
the imperial hand, a white, plump hand, he has 
felt a pressure of this august hand, and he has 
heard the words ' sit down,' which summon him 
to his task. It is a task often interrupted. 
Ministers, generals, high officials, who have been 
granted audiences, are announced, and the Em- 
press is often considerate enough not to make 
them wait. Now General Souvarof is ushered 
in. Without looking at the Empress, he marches 
with his automatic soldier's step straight to the 
right, where, in a corner, a lamp is always kept 
burning before the image of Our Lady of Kasan. 
He stops short before the icone, and bends three 
times, striking the ground with his forehead. 
Having accomplished this rite, he turns sharply, 



376 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



as if he were at drill, takes a few steps forward, 
and a fourth genuflection brings him to the 
sovereign's feet. 

' Pray, are you not ashamed ? ' she murmurs. 
She makes him sit down, addresses two or three 
questions to him, one after another, to which he 
replies in the tone of a trooper catechised by a 
corporal, and she dismisses him after two minutes. 
Other personages arrive. But, all at once, some 
one whispers a word in the Empress's ear, she 
gives a sign of the head, and all retire : it is 
the favourite, Patiomkine, Lanskoi, or Mamonof, 
who wishes to come in. For him her Majesty is 
always visible, and, when he comes, every one 
else goes. 

This goes on till mid-day, afterwards till one 
o'clock when the dinner-hour has been changed 
from one to two. After dismissing her secretary, 
the Empress retires to her private dressing-room, 
where she makes a complete toilette, dresses, 
and has her hair dressed by her old coiffeur Koz- 
lof. Her costume, except on great occasions, is 
extremely simple : a loose and open gown, a la 
Moldave, with double sleeves ; the under ones of 
a light material, plaited to the wrist, the over 
ones very long, of similar material to the skirt, 
and caught up at the back. The gown is of 
violet or grey silk ; there are no jewels, no 
indication of supreme rank ; comfortable shoes 
with very low heels. Catherine puts no coquetry 
in anything but the arrangement of her hair : she 
wears her hair drawn back, showing the whole of 
the forehead, the development of which she per- 
haps likes to emphasise. Her hair is long and 
heavy ; when she sits before her toilet-table, 



HOME LIFE 



377 



it touches the ground. On state occasions a 
diadem crowns the cunning edifice raised by the 
skilful hands of Kozlof ; but then the silk dress 
is replaced by red velvet, and the costume thus 
transformed, though it keeps much the same easy 
character, takes the name of * the Russian dress/ 
It is obligatory at court, despite the heavy 
sacrifices it imposes on the young women, who 
are distressed at not being got up in the Paris 
fashion. 

Her private toilette over, Catherine goes into 
the official toilette-chamber, where she finishes 
dressing. It is the petit lever. The number of 
those who have the privilege of being present is 
limited ; but in spite of this, the room is full. 
There are, first, the Empress's grandchildren, who 
are invariably brought in; then the favourite ; with 
a few friends, such as Leon Narychkine. There 
is also the court fool, who is a person of much 
wisdom : Matrena Danilevna holds this office, to 
which she adds that of tale-bearer. She diverts 
the sovereign by her jokes, and Catherine is 
kept an courant of all that is going on at court 
and in the city, the scandals in the air since the 
night before, and even the best kept family- 
secrets. Matrena Danilevna has an eye and ear 
everywhere, and admirable police instincts. One 
day she is very severe upon Ryleief, the chief 
of imperial police. Catherine summons him to 
her, and advises him in a friendly manner to send 
some fat fowls and geese to Matrena Danilevna, 
who seems to be in want of them in order to duly 
celebrate the Prasdnik (Easter). A week passes. 
* And Ryleief?' asks the Empress of the worthy 

gossip, who is dishing up to her the string of 

25 



378 CA THERINE II OF RUSSIA 

daily tattle. Matrena Danilevna has nothing 
but praise for the official, for whom, a week 
before, she had nothing but abuse. ' Ah ! ah ! ' 
interrupts Catherine. \ I see what it is : he has 
sent you some fowls and geese.' 

But now the Empress is seated before her 
toilet- table, a superb table in massive gold. Her 
four fem7nes de chambre approach her. They are 
four old maids, whom she has had in her service 
since her accession to the throne, and who have 
passed their heyday in her service. They were 
all of them very plain. One of them, Maria 
Stiepanovna Aleksieievna, paints her face in the 
most preposterous way. They are all Russian. 
To give her subjects an example that they have 
never, up to the present time, followed, Catherine 
has absolutely none but Russian servants. Now 
Maria Stiepanovna presents to the sovereign a 
piece of ice, which she rubs over her cheeks in 
public, to prove that she herself has no recourse 
to the coquettish tricks employed by her femme de 
chambre ; the old Palakoutchi places on her head 
a little crape cap, this time carefully adjusted ; 
the two Zvieref sisters add some pins, and her 
Majesty's toilette is over. The whole ceremony 
has lasted about ten minutes, during which 
Catherine has spoken to several of those present. 

And now to table. Up to the time of the 
Swedish war, dinner was at one o'clock. At that 
time the pressing occupations with which Cathe- 
rine was burdened made her put off the hour of 
dinner, which remained afterwards at two o'clock. 
On ordinary days there are generally about a 
dozen guests at her Majesty's table : the favourite 
first of all, as a matter of course, a few friends, 



HOME LIFE m 

Count Razoumofski, Field-Marshal Prince Galit- 
sine, Prince Patiomkine, the Count of Anhalt, 
the two Narychkine brothers, the General 
Aide-de-Camp, Count Tchernichef, Count Stro- 
gonof, Prince Bariatinski, Countess Bruce, Coun- 
tess Branicka, Princess Dachkof, .and, later on, 
during the last years of the reign, the General 
Aide-de-Camp Passek, Count Strogonof, the 
Maid of Honour Protassof, Vice-Admiral Ribas, 
the General Governor of the Polish provinces, 
Toutolmine, and two of the French emigres, 
Comte Esterhazy and the Marquis de Lambert. 
Dinner lasts about an hour. The dishes 
are very simple. Catherine cares nothing 
about elaborate cookery. Her favourite dish is 
boiled beef with salted cucumber; her drink, 
water with gooseberry sirup. Later, on the 
advice of physicians, she takes a glass of Madeira 
or Rhine wine. For desert, some fruit, apples or 
cherries by preference. Among her cooks there 
is one who cooks abominably. For years she 
has never noticed it. When it has been pointed 
out to her, she has refused to dismiss the 
man, saying that he has been in her service 
too long. She merely inquires when his turn 
comes, and then says on sitting down to 
table : ' Ladies and gentlemen, we must exer- 
cise our patience ; we have a week's fast before 
us/ 

Twice a week her Majesty keeps jour maigre, 
and on these occasions she has only two or three 
people to dinner. 

It should be added that her guests are not 
obliged to go beyond the palace to find better 
cheer. Her Majesty's table is poorly served, 



3&J CATHERINE II. OF RUSSTA 

and Catherine sees that the expenses are kept 
down ; but the table of the favourite, Zoubof, 
that of his protector, the Count N. J. Saltykof, 
and that of the Countess Branicka, Patiomkine's 
niece, which are all three paid for out of the 
imperial treasury, come to 400 roubles (2000 
francs) a day in 1792, without counting the 
drink, which, with tea, coffee, and chocolate, 
comes to 200 roubles a day extra. 

After dinner there are a few minutes' con- 
versation ; then every one retires. Catherine 
takes up her embroidery, at which she is very 
skilful, and Betzky reads aloud to her. When 
Betzky, now growing old, begins to lose his 
sight, she does not have him replaced ; she reads 
herself, with the aid of her glasses. An hour 
passes in this way, and now her secretary is 
announced : twice a week he comes with the 
courier, who is immediately despoiled. The 
other days, it is the officials who come, one 
after another, handing in reports, demanding 
instructions. All the while the Empress gener- 
ally has with her her grandchildren, with whom 
she plays in the intervals of her business. By 
four o'clock she has well earned the rest and 
recreation which she now allows herself. She 
betakes herself to her favourite Hermitage, 
through the long gallery which connects it with 
the Winter Palace. Lansko'i or Mamonof or 
Zoubof accompanies her. She examines her new 
collections, sees to their arrangement, has a game 
of billiards, and sometimes amuses herself with 
turning ivory. At six o'clock she returns to the 
reception-rooms. Slowly she makes the round of 
her salons, giving an amiable word here and 



HOME LIFE 



38i 



there, and then sits down to her whist- table. 
She plays whist at ten roubles the rubber, 
rocambole, piquet, and Boston ; always very 
cheaply. Her usual partners are Count Razou- 
mofski, Field-Marshal Count Tchernichef, Field- 
Marshal Prince Galitzine, Count Bruce, Count 
Strogonof, Prince Orlof, Prince Viazemski, and 
the foreign ministers. Catherine gives the pre- 
ference to the two first, because they play well, 
and do not try to make her gain. She herself 
plays her very best. The chamberlain Tchert- 
kof, whom she sometimes admits to make up 
a party, generally gets in a rage, reproaches her 
with not playing fair, and, sometimes, in his 
vexation, throws the cards in her Majesty's face. 
She never loses her temper, defends her way 
of playing as best she can, appealing to the 
bystanders. One day she calls on the two 
French exiles, who are of the party, to give 
their opinion. 

* Fine arbiters ! ' cries Tchertkof. * They be- 
trayed their own king ! ' 

This time Catherine has to impose silence on 
the too reckless player. One sees that she has 
no easy task to maintain at her court the tone 
that should reign there. Another time, as she 
is playing at whist with Count Strogonof, General 
Arharof, and Count Stackelberg, Strogonof con- 
stantly loses. At last, unable to contain himself 
any longer, and forgetting all the convenances, he 
rises in a heat, leaves the party without finishing 
it, and, with purple cheeks, begins to stride to 
and fro in the Diamond Room, giving free course 
to his irritation — 

' I shall lose all my money ! As for you, it 



382 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

makes no difference for you if you lose. But 
as for me, I shall soon be in destitution.' 

Thinking that this is going too far, Arharof 
would interfere, but Catherine stops him : ' Let 
him be ! He has been just like that for fifty 
years. You will never change him, no more 

shall \: 

The play invariably stops at ten o'clock. Her 
Majesty then retires. Except on reception-days, 
there is no supper, and even on these days 
Catherine only sits down to table as a matter 
of form. Returning to her private suite of rooms, 
she goes immediately to her bedroom, drinks 
a large glass of boiled water, and goes to bed. 
Her day is ended. 

11 

This is a quiet enough course of existence, 
and the picture that we have just presented will 
not, perhaps, be much in agreement with the 
very different pictures presented to us by the 
usual legend. We have, however, drawn from 
the best sources ; but we find a very natural 
explanation of the contrast between legend and 
history. The former draws its inspiration, for 
one thing, from what was really reprehensible, and 
might well have justified the most ill-natured sup- 
positions in regard to one side of the Empress's 
private life, on which we shall enlarge later. 
Legend and ill-feeling have also made capital out 
of certain periods of dissipation which were never- 
theless only accidental and occasional in the history 
of the great Empress, such as that which followed 
the great crisis of despair after the death of 



HOME LIFE 



333 



Lanskoi. The general course of life of Catherine 
appears under quite a different light, and, if we 
can make up our minds to throw a veil over 
certain pleasures, which, for the rest, never dis- 
turbed, in a permanent fashion, the harmonious 
balance of her faculties, nor the wisely planned 
programme of her occupations, the other distrac- 
tions, associated with them, were quite mild and 
innocent. Those who, on the strength of certain 
reports, have looked upon her existence as one 
continual orgy, would flrrd it hard indeed to 
justify such a conception by the testimony of 
fact. History gives no support to it. But is 
this history well informed ? Did not the more 
or less edifying outside of the Empress's private 
life hide something far more scandalous under- 
neath? Were there not, in the palaces of St. 
Petersburg and Tzarskoie-Sielo, in the rooms of 
the Hermitage, certain hidden corners, conceal- 
ing more unmentionable pleasures ? We do not 
think so, for reasons founded as much on the 
character of Catherine as on the very organisa- 
tion of her private life, itself, in one way, so 
much a scandal, but a scandal which was official, 
cynically but frankly avowed. The Empress 
has given the lie, for the rest, not in words but 
in actions, to the greater part of the infamous 
accusations that were brought against her during 
her lifetime. The Englishman Harris wrote in 
January 1779 : * The Empress becomes from day 
to day more disordered and dissipated, and her 
society is composed of the lowest set among the 
courtiers ; the health of her Majesty is certainly 
tried by the life she leads/ And the Foreign 
Office concluding that the sovereign, s worn out 



384 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

by debauch/ had only a short while to live, all 
Europe soon found out, rather at its expense, 
that Catherine was quite alive, healthy in body 
and mind. Never was she in better health, 
physically and mentally, than at this time. 

Catherine was certainly sensual, licentious if 
you will, but she was nothing of a Bacchante. 
Insatiably amorous, as she was infinitely ambi- 
tious, she accommodated her love affairs, as she 
accommodated her ambition, to certain rules of 
conduct, from which she never varied. Favour- 
ites had always a large place in her palace and 
in all the material, moral, and even political 
organisation of her life ; but the sovereign always 
held her own, and, strange as it may sound, the 
quiet housewife as well. 

Catherine was passionately fond of children ; 
it was one of her favourite pastimes to play with 
them. In a letter addressed to Ivan Tchernichef 
in 1769 she brings herself before us, with the 
usual company of her leisure hours, and we see 
her, Gregory Orlof, Count Razoumofski, and 
Zahar Tchernichef, Ivan's brother, playing with 
the little Markof, whom the sovereign has just 
adopted, gambolling, rolling on the ground, com- 
mitting a thousand absurdities, and all the time 
in fits of laughter. The little Markof, then six 
years old, is afterwards replaced by the son of 
Admiral Ribeaupierre. The child is hard to 
tame, having got into his little brain the idea 
that he has been brought to the palace that he 
may have his head cut off. But Catherine 
gradually wins him over, cutting out paper 
figures, making toys for him. One day she tears 
a ribbon out of her collerette to make the reins 



HOME LIFE 



385 



of a horse and pair that she has cut out of card- 
board. She has him with her for hours together, 
sends him away when any one comes to her on 
business, then sends for him again ; at the age of 
five she makes him an officer of the Guards. 
He is not the only one to be thus favoured : two 
little Galitzines, four grand-nephews of Patiom- 
kine, the son of the Field-Marshal Count Salty- 
kof, the son of the hetman Branicki, the young 
Count Chouvalof, who afterwards accompanied 
Napoleon to Elba, and young Valentine Ester- 
hazy, all have their share. Little Ribeaupierre 
lives under her Majesty's roof till the age of 
twelve. On sending him away, Catherine wishes 
him to write to her, and she replies to his letter 
in her own handwriting. But her letter is so full 
of erasures — she has not, this time, taken the 
trouble to begin over again — that she has it 
copied out by her secretary, Popof, who after- 
wards sends on the original. 

After children, we dare not say before, but it 
would perhaps be more correct, dogs, and ani- 
mals in general, play a large part in Catherines 
private life. The family of Sir Tom Anderson 
is certainly, of all the families of the empire, the 
one whose position at court is most solidly 
established. Here is the list, in one of the 
Empress's letters — ■ 

* First comes the head of the race, Sir Tom 
Anderson, his spouse, Duchess Anderson, their 
children, the young Duchess Anderson, Mr. 
Anderson, and Tom Thomson : the last is 
established at Moscow under the guardianship of 
Prince Volkonski, Governor-General of the city. 
There are also, besides these, whose reputation 



3§6 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

is made, four or five young people of infinite 
promise, who are being brought up in the best 
houses in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as for 
example that of Prince Orlof, MM. Narychkine, 
and Prince Toupiakine. Sir Tom Anderson has 
taken as second wife Mile. Mimi, who has since 
taken the name of Mimi Anderson. But up to 
now there is no family. Besides these legitimate 
marriages (since the faults as well as the virtues 
of people must be told in their history) M. Tom 
has had several illegitimate attachments : the 
Grand Duchess has several pretty bitches who 
have greatly taken him, but up to the present no 
bastards have been seen, and it would seem that 
there are none ; anything to the contrary is a 
mere calumny.' 

But Catherine was not content with dogs 
alone. In 1785 she takes a fancy to a white 
squirrel, which she brings up herself, and feeds 
out of her hand with nuts. And about the same 
time she gets a monkey, of whose cleverness and 
pretty ways she often boasts. ' You should have 
seen/ she writes to Grimm, 'the amazement of 
Prince Henry ' (brother of the King of Prussia) 
' one day when Prince Potemkin let loose a 
monkey in the room, with which I began to play, 
instead of going on with the conversation we 
were engaged in. He opened his eyes, but in 
spite of all, he could not resist the tricks of the 
monkey/ At that time she had also a cat, the 
present of Prince Patiomkine : * the most tom-cat 
of all tom-cats, gay, witty, not obstinate/ The 
present is in return for a service in Sevres 
porcelain, which she has had made for the 
favourite, saying that it was for her, 'so that it 



HOME LIFE 



387 



should be finer.' The Anderson family, however, 
loses none of its rights. 'You will excuse me,' 
says the Empress in one of her letters, ' if all 
the preceding page is very badly written. I am 
extremely hampered at the moment by a certain 
young and fair Zemire, who of all the Thomassins 
is the one who will come closest to me, and who 
pushes her pretensions to the point of having her 
paws on my paper. 1 

Let us quote also this fragment of the Sou- 
venirs of Madame Vigee-Lebrun : ' When the 
Empress had returned to town, I used to see her 
every morning open the shutters and throw out 
crumbs to hundreds of rooks who came every 
day at the same hour to seek their pittance. In 
the evening, about ten, when the rooms were lit 
up, I used also to see her send for her grand- 
children and some persons of the court, to play at 
hot cockles and hide-and-seek.' 

Madame Vigee-Lebrun lodged in a house op- 
posite to the imperial palace. Regardless of local 
colour, legend has since transformed the rooks 
into pigeons ; but, legend or history, does not all 
that the one and the other tell us of the tastes 
and habits of Catherine stand out in anything 
but the colours of a Messalina ? Doubtless the 
objection that we have ourselves raised retains 
its force. Is what we know of the interior of a 
palace in which Catherine dwelt in company with 
an Orlof or a Patiomkine the whole truth, the 
true truth, as the Italians say? Doubt is the 
first virtue of the historian, and we would not 
forget it. Nevertheless, as we have already said, 
Catherine was no hypocrite ; she lived openly 
before the world, and she had the pride, or the 



388 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



shamelessness, to seek no disguise, and to defy 
rebuke, at the point where our respect and admira- 
tion must needs forsake her. 

in 

From the outside, the Empress's life offers 
little material for the chronicler, favourably in- 
clined or the reverse. 

Apart from the great tours which stand out in 
the history of her reign, that in the Crimea for 
instance, she preferred generally to keep within 
the bounds of her vast and luxurious palaces. 
Sometimes, during the carnival, on a line sunny 
day, she would make a longer expedition. Three 
great sledges, drawn by ten or twelve horses, 
carried her and her ordinary retinue. To each of 
these sledges a dozen smaller ones were fastened 
on behind with ropes, and into these the lords 
and ladies of the court crowded pell-mell, and the 
strange cavalcade set out at a gallop. They have 
dinner in the suburbs of the capital, in the 
Tchesme Palace, and afterwards cross the Neva 
and go on as far as Gorbilevo, an imperial villa 
where there are montagnes russes ; returning to 
the Taurida Palace for supper. On one of these 
excursions, after having dined and returned to 
her place in one of the large sledges, which she 
has all to herself, Catherine inquires of her squire 
if the drivers and lackeys have had their dinner. 
On his replying in the negative, she gets down 
from the sledge. 4 They want dinner as much as 
we do/ she says. And, as there is no meal ready 
for them, she waits patiently until the hunger of 
the poor servants is appeased. 



HOME LIFE 



389 



But these escapades are rare. The sovereign 
does not care to be seen too often, except in her 
palace, in the midst of the decorative mise-en- 
scene that surrounds her ; she fears to lessen her 
prestige. One day when she has a headache, 
and a walk in the open air has done her good, 
she is recommended to try it again next day, the 
headache having returned. ' What would the 
people say,' she replies, 'if they saw me in the 
street two days following ? ' Twice in the course 
of the winter she goes to the masked ball. 
Those whom she invites to accompany her find 
masks and costumes at the court. Generally, on 
these occasions, in order the better to preserve 
her incognito, Catherine goes in some one else's 
coach. She likes to put on a man's costume, and 
to puzzle the women, to whom she pays court, 
and whose curiosity she puts off the track. Her 
voice, rather deep, lends itself to this disguise. 
One of those whose fancy she takes, carrying her 
imaginary conquest to some lengths, is so curious 
that she ends by violently tearing off the mask of 
the mysterious cavalier. Catherine is very angry, 
but she merely reproaches the too susceptible 
fair one of having broken the etiquette in usage 
at fites of this kind. 

She accepts no invitations. The opulent 
Prince of Taurida, Count Razoumofski, Prince 
Field-Marshal Galitzine, the two Narychkines, 
the Countess Bruce, and Madame Batiouchkine 
are almost the only persons who have sometimes 
the honour of having her as guest. But as a rule 
she will not have herself announced, delighting 
in the confusion caused by her unexpected ap- 
parition. 



390 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

In spring she leaves the Winter Palace for the 
Taurida Palace, when that magnificent abode, 
built by Patiomkine, has been bought by her 
from the wealthy favourite. She generally goes 
there on Palm Sunday, and pays her Easter 
devotions. She remains there till the month of 
May, when she returns to the shades of Tzar- 
skoie-Sielo. This abode that she has built, in 
place of the residences of Peterhof and Oranien- 
baum, about which there cling too mournful 
souvenirs, is the spot where she is most happy. 
There, no more reception, no more court cere- 
mony, no more tiresome audiences. Affairs even 
are in some sort suspended, or at least reduced to 
what is strictly necessary. The Empress rises 
at six or seven, and begins her day with a walk. 
Lightly dressed, a cane in her hand, she strolls 
through her gardens. The faithful Pierekousihina, 
a valet de ckambre, and a huntsman, are the 
only ones who accompany her. But the Anderson 
family, one may be sure, is of the party, and the 
sovereign's presence is known from afar by the 
joyous barking of the band that gambols before 
her on the grass. Catherine is passionately fond 
of gardening, and plant omania, as she calls that 
taste, rivals with her the taste for building. She 
follows, in this respect, the fashion of the age. 

' I am madly enamoured at present/ she writes 
in 1772, 'of gardens in the English manner, 
curved lines, gentle slopes, pools in the form of 
lakes, archipelagos in terra fir ma, and I have a 
profound scorn for straight lines. I hate foun- 
tains that torture the water to make it take a 
course contrary to nature : in a word anglomania 
dominates my plantomania.' And five years 



HOME LIFE 



391 



later : * I often enrage my gardeners, and more 
than one German gardener has said to me : Aber, 
mein Gott, was wird das werden / I found that 
the greater part were mere pedantic followers of 
routine : the departures from routine that I often 
propose to them horrify them, and, when I see 
that routine is too strong for me, I employ the 
first docile young gardener that comes to hand. 
There is no one who laughs at my plantomania so 
much as Count Orlof. He spies on me, mimics 
me, makes fun of me, criticises me, but, on going 
away, he asked me to look after his garden 
during the summer, and this year I am going to 
play pranks there after my own fashion. His 
land is close to mine ; I am very proud that he 
has recognised my merits as a gardener.' 

The gardens of Tzarskoie are public. One 
day, sitting on a bench with la Pierekousihina, 
Catherine sees a man pass, a citizen of St. Peters- 
burg, who, seeing the two old women, and not 
recognising the sovereign, casts a scornful look 
upon them, and goes on his way. La Pierekousi- 
hina is indignant, but Catherine replies : ' What 
would you have, Maria Savichna? Twenty 
years ago that would not have happened to us ; 
we have aged : it is our fault.' 

After her walk, at nine, Catherine begins 
work, and till six o'clock the rest of the day goes 
on much as it does in town, except that there are 
fewer officials and tedious clerkly people, and 
that the private retinue is lessened. One or two 
invited guests from the capital sometimes appear 
at dinner. At six o'clock, another walk, this 
time in larger numbers, but in the most complete 
liberty. The Empress's grandchildren play at 



392 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



base -ball, with Count Razoumofski as umpire. 
If it rains, Catherine gathers together her people 
in the famous gallery of colonnades covered with 
glass, in which one sees the busts of the great 
men, ancient and modern, for whom she has a 
particular admiration. 

The foreign ministers are sometimes admitted 
to share the pleasures of the imperial villegiatura. 
The Comte de Segur, who had this honour, thus 
recounts his recollections of it : — 

'Catherine 1 1, had the extreme kindness to show 
me herself all the beauties of this magnificent 
pleasure-house, whose limpid waters, fresh groves, 
elegant pavilions, noble architecture, priceless 
furniture, cabinets panelled in porphyry, in lapis- 
lazuli, in malachite, had a fairy-like air, and recalled 
to those who admired them the palace and gardens 
of Armida. . . . The entire liberty, the gaiety of 
conversation, the absence of all ennui and con- 
straint, might have made me believe, had I 
turned away my eyes from the imposing majesty 
of the Palace of Tzarskoie-Sielo, that I was in 
the country among the pleasantest of private 
people. . . . M. de Cobenzel manifested his 
unquenchable gaiety ; M. Fitz- Herbert, a fine and 
finished wit ; General Potemkin, an originality 
that made him always new, even during his 
frequent moments of moroseness or dreaminess. 
The Empress chatted familiarly on all subjects, 
politics excepted ; she liked to hear amusing 
stories, and to tell them, and if by chance the 
conversation flagged, the chief equerry, Narych- 
kine, recalled the laughter and gaiety by his 
mad humour. Catherine worked almost all the 
morning, and we were all free to write, read, 



HOME LIFE 



353 



walk, or do whatever we felt inclined. The 
dinner, very limited as to dishes and guests, was 
good, simple, without display ; the time after 
dinner was devoted to play and conversation. 
In the evening the Empress retired early, and 
after that we met together, Cobenzel, Fitz- 
Herbert, and I, either in the room of one of our 
number, or in Prince PotemkinV 

Catherine rested in this pleasant retreat from 
the fatigues of her position, from those especially 
which came from the necessity of her presence in 
the court festivities and ceremonies. We owe 
our readers a few words on the celebrated soirees 
of the Hermitage. 

In the amplitude of its proportions, the magni- 
ficence of its interior decoration, the palace thus 
called did not by any means answer to its name. 
A series of rooms and galleries led to a circular 
salle de spectacle, a reduced copy of the ancient 
theatre at Vicenza. The receptions were of 
three different kinds, the great receptions, the 
medium, and the small. To the first were ad- 
mitted generally all the persons of distinction and 
the foreign ministers. Balls alternated with 
performances, in which all the famous artists took 
part : Sarti, Cimarosa, Paisiello conducted the 
orchestra ; Biotti, Puniani, Dietz, Lulli, Michel, 
displayed their talents on different instruments ; 
la Gabrielli, la Todi, the baritone Marchesi, 
the tenor Majorletti, sang ; in pantomime there 
were Pic, Rossi, Santini, Canucciani. After the 
concerts and Italian operas came the performances 
of Russian comedies and plays, with Volkof, 
Dmitrefski, Choumski, Kroutitski, Tchernikof, 
Sandounoff, la Trepolskaia. The French drama 
26 



394 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

and opera also had their place, with Sedaine, 
Philidor, Gretry, whose works found elegant 
interpreters, such as the famous Aufresne. At 
the ball, each lady had two cavaliers, who supped 
with her. After supper one more polonaise was 
danced, and the ball was over before ten. 

The medium receptions differed from the 
grand receptions merely by the smaller number 
of guests. 

Quite different was the character of the small 
receptions. As a rule no one was present except 
the members of the imperial family and some 
special friends carefully selected — a score of 
people in all. An invitation to a stranger was a 
mark of exceptional favour, to which the greatest 
value was attached. In the orchestra, when 
there was a play, as was often the case, there 
were sometimes only three or four picked musi- 
cians, Dietz with his violin, Delfini with his 
violoncello, Cardon with his harp. After the 
play, every one did as he liked. In the rooms 
thrown open to the guests there was really no 
longer un soupgon dimpdratrice, as she is made 
to say to the Baron Grimm in a passage of 
his memoirs. On the walls is a notice : it is 
forbidden, among other things, to rise before the 
sovereign, even if one is sitting down, and the 
Empress comes over, and chooses to enter into 
conversation while standing. It is forbidden to 
have an ill-tempered air, to exchange unkind 
words, to speak ill of any one whatever. It is 
forbidden to remember the quarrels or the friend- 
ships that one may have out of doors : they must 
be left at the door, with sword and hat. It is 
forbidden also to lie and to talk idly. A fine of 



HOME LIFE 



395 



ten kopecks, which is received in a poor-box, is 
inflicted on those who break these rules. Bez- 
borodko is appointed cashier. Among the habituds 
there is one who, by his constant blunders, con- 
tinually has the cashier after him with his money- 
box. One day when the bore has gone before 
the other guests, Bezborodko says to the Empress 
that she ought to refuse him admission to the 
Hermitage, otherwise he will ruin himself in 
fines. 'Let him be,' replies Catherine, 'after 
having passed the day in hearing your reports 
and those of your colleagues, I need some rest, 
and such idle talk is quite pleasant.' ' Then, 
Matouchka,' says Bezborodko, 'come and pay 
us a visit in the senate : you will get as much 
of it as ever you want.' 

Games are all the rage in these gatherings, 
and Catherine herself is the life and soul of the 
company, stirring up the gaiety of her guests, 
and authorising every liberty. The forfeits are, 
to drink a glass of water at one draught, to recite 
a passage of the TdUmachide of Trediakofski 
without yawning, etc. The evening ends with a 
game of cards. Often, in the middle of a rubber, 
the sovereign is interrupted to execute some 
forfeit. 4 What must I do ? ' she asks meekly. 
' Sit on the ground, Matouchka.' She obeys at 
once. 

All that is far enough from the imaginary 
orgies which haunted the minds of her contem- 
poraries. In a way, it is true, Catherine afforded 
some excuse for suppositions of this kind, which 
have done some harm to her reputation. She 
had from the first, and she kept to the last, 
ways and manners which are unusual enough in 



396 CA THERINE 1L OF RUSSIA 

sovereigns. In 1763 the Baron de Breteuil, 
just as he was leaving his post, received from her 
the following letter, the style of which might 
have surprised a diplomatist accustomed to the 
ceremonious forms in use in courts :— 

1 Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil will have the 
kindness to be at the cottage, on whose beauty 
he has promised to keep eternal secrecy, on 
Sunday at eleven o'clock in the morning, and if 
he will be so good, he will remain till after supper 
on the pretext of paying a visit to Count Orlof.' 

The note, without date or signature, was in 
the Empress's handwriting. The cottage referred 
to was a villa newly built in the neighbourhood 
of Moscow. Breteuil answered as follows :— 

'The Baron de Breteuil renews his vows of 
secrecy in regard to the cottage, where he looks 
forward to the pleasure of being publicly admitted 
on Sunday at eleven o'clock. He will be there, 
in all respect and gratitude, and he will take 
advantage of the kind permission to remain all 
day, but M. le Comte d' Orlof will excuse him 
from making the pretext of paying him a visit.' 

One would say that this was written at the 
dictation of the Baroness. But if she really 
saw anything dubious in the sovereign's invita- 
tion, she was well deceived, and her husband 
well taken aback, when he found out the real 
cause of it. 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 397 



CHAPTER II 

FAMILY LIFE THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 

I 

Catherine did not show a very profound affec- 
tion for her parents ; she seemed to forget that 
she had a brother; she was on bad terms with 
her husband, if she had not even some share, 
direct or indirect, in his tragic end ; finally, her 
son, the only one of her legitimate children who 
survived her, had not much cause for gratitude 
to her, if even, as it has been supposed, she did 
not think of disinheriting him. These are facts. 
It has been inferred from this that she had no 
sort of family feeling, and that even the maternal 
feeling, found in the lowest of the low, and even 
among the animals, was alien to her cold and 
* corrupt heart, depraved by ambition and by vice. 
These are questions to be considered. 

What were the relations of Catherine with her 
husband, we have already said. Her relations 
with the heir to the throne have been variously 
interpreted. Some have imagined them to have 
been excellent up to the time of Paul's first 
marriage. From this moment the presence of a 
stranger may have exercised, in their regard, 
a jarring influence, such as one finds in the 
history of many families. Besides this, in the 
first year of this union, in 1774, a conspiracy 
is said to have been discovered, the aim of which 
was to raise the Grand Duke to the throne in 
place of his mother, and at the head of this plot 



393 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

was the new daughter-in-law of Catherine, the 
Grand Duchess Nathalie Aleksieievna, nde Prin- 
cess of Darmstadt. A secretary of Count Panine, 
Bakounine, betrayed the secret to the Empress, 
who threw the list of conspirators in the fire : 
among the names she had found that of her 
Prime Minister, side by side with her former 
friend, Princess Dachkof. 

This story, which is founded merely on a family 
tradition, has been doubted by many. It raises, 
in fact, many objections. Plots, real or imagin- 
ary, having for object the support of the incon- 
testable rights of the son of Peter III., were 
frequent throughout the whole reign of Catherine. 
In his despatch of June 26, 1772, Count Solms 
notifies to Frederick the discovery of an intrigue 
of this kind set on foot by some officers of the 
Preobrajenski regiment. But he speaks also of 
blows of the knout distributed, of noses and ears 
cut off. Such was the natural order of things. 
The fact admitted of an almost hostile tension 
between mother and son, in place of the former 
harmonious, if never very intimate and affec- 
tionate, relations, another explanation has been 
given and another date attributed to this change 
of things. The tour that Paul wished to make in 
Europe, in company with his second wife, the 
Grand Duchess Maria of Wurtemberg, brought 
about the crisis. Having authorised this excur- 
sion only against her will, Catherine wished her 
son, at all events, not to stop at Berlin. She was 
on the point of breaking with the court there. 
Paul took no heed of all that. He let himself 
be feted, flattered, and cajoled by Frederick, and 
when he made his appearance at Vienna, people 



FAMILY LIFE—THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 399 



were astonished to find that he knew nothing, 
or professed to know nothing, of the alliance 
which had already linked that court with his. 
He put himself forward everywhere as a severe 
critic of his mother's policy. At Florence, 
talking with Leopold, the brother of Joseph, 
he expressed himself in the most unguarded 
manner in reference to the principal assistants 
of Catherine, Prince Patiomkine, Bezborodko, 
Panine himself, declaring that they were all 
without exception in the pay of the Emperor. 
' 1 will stamp them all out,' he repeated wrath- 
fully. 

This second version seems to us as arbitrary 
as the first, and neither appears to have any 
foundation ; it remains to be proved that at 
any period whatever Catherine treated her son 
better than she did after his marriage, or after 
the 'grand tour' which separated them for a 
time. Doubtless, in her letters to Madame Bielke, 
which date from 1772, it pleases the sovereign 
to paint in the most agreeable colours the life 
that she leads at Tzarskoie, in company with 
Paul ; but we know already what Catherine's 
epistolary sincerity is worth. Doubtless also, 
in the course of the September of that year, 
the Prussian ambassador, Count Solms, mentions 
several times a revival of tender demonstrations 
of the Empress to the Grand Duke. ' She 
cannot make a step without having him with 
her,' he writes. But this is at the very height 
of the crisis which, in separating the sovereign 
from her first favourite, and thus putting her at 
variance with the powerful tribe of the Orlofs, 
causes her serious misgivings as to the security 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



of her throne. ' I know on sure authority/ adds 
Solms, 'that the Grand Duke is not too sure 
himself of the meaning of this excess of friend- 
liness on the part of his mother/ And not 
without reason. About the same time, writing 
to her son, and beginning her" letter twice over, 
Catherine first wrote these words : — - 

6 It seems to me that you were either afflicted 
or sulky during the day ; both would distress 
me as a mother; but as for the sulkiness, I 
confess I am not much concerned about that, 
either as mother or as Empress/ 

She tore up the page, and began again thus :— 

( It seems to me that you were either afflicted 
or sulky during the day ; if you were in affliction, 
I should be distressed by it ; if it was sullenness, 
I leave you to imagine what attention I should 
pay to that/ 

But the first draft probably rendered her 
thought more exactly, and it does not indicate, 
to our view, very cordial relations. Catherine 
supposed that the affliction or sulkiness of the 
Grand Duke came from her refusal to admit 
him to her council, and this refusal was assuredly 
not in itself a proof of confidence or affection. 
As early as 1764 Berenger wrote from St. Peters- 
burg to the Duke of Praslin— 

' This young Prince gives evidence of dark 
and dangerous dispositions. It is known that 
his mother does not love him, and that, since 
her accession, she shows him none of the marks 
of tenderness that she showered upon him be- 
fore. a . . He asked, a few days ago [Berenger 
had this detail from one of the Grand Duke's 
valets de chambre\ why his father had died, and 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 401 

why the throne which belonged to him had been 
given to his mother. He added that when he 
was grown up, he would get at the bottom of 
all that. They say that the child makes too 
many such remarks for them not to reach the 
ears of the Empress. Now, no one doubts that 
this Princess takes all possible precautions against 
such an event.' 

It is possible, however, that the tour under- 
taken by Paul against the wish of his mother, 
and the attitude that he often assumed on that 
occasion, may have helped to bring about some 
ill-feeling on the part of the Empress, and to 
urge her forward on a path on which her ac- 
cession to the throne, that is to say, properly 
speaking, her usurpation of the rights of her 
son, had made her enter. 

But the intimacy and affection had ceased 
before this. They were incompatible with the 
respective position of these two beings, one of 
whom had violently taken the place of the other. 
Had these affectionate feelings and relations 
ever existed? Could Catherine ever have had 
a mother's heart for the child who had been 
torn from her arms as soon as he was born, 
whom she had never nursed, whom she had 
never brought up, whom she had never even seen 
except at rare intervals ? Did she ever really 
shower upon him those caresses of which Beren- 
ger speaks ? Perhaps, before she had become 
Empress, when the child, her son, might one day 
become her Emperor and her master. If there 
was a change in her demeanour, the event must 
have been simultaneous with that of July 5, 1762, 
as indeed the report of the French charge 



402 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

d'affaires clearly indicates, and the reason is 
sufficiently apparent 

ii 

We have already spoken several times of the 
tour of the Count and Countess du Nord. The 
departure, which took place on October 5, 1781, 
produced a great sensation at St. Petersburg. 
The people surrounded the carriage which bore 
the heir to the throne, with tears and sobs and 
every sign of the warmest affection. Some 
enthusiasts threw themselves under the wheels 
of the carriage to hinder it from advancing. This 
alone might well have alarmed Catherine. She 
was, however, at first well pleased, rather than 
otherwise, by the homage with which Paul 
was greeted at Berlin. A conversation that 
she had with her son, after his return, changed 
her feelings on the subject. Then only she be- 
thought herself that he had been made too much 
of by Frederick. As Paul made no disguise of 
his opinions and sympathies, she grew angry, 
declaring in her wrath that after she was dead 
' Russia would become a Prussian province.* 

The Grand Duke's travels were in the strictest 
incognito. Their Highnesses refused even the 
apartments that had been prepared for them, 
putting up in furnished lodgings with all their 
suite, which must have been considerable, since 
it required sixty horses at every posting station. 
Paul and his wife consented, however, to be 
guests at Versailles for a few days, and their 
visit seems to have left a favourable impression. 
■ The Grand Duke/ wrote Marie Antoinette, the 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 403 



day after their departure, ' has the air of an ardent 
and impetuous man who holds himself in. . . . 
The King has not noticed that he professed ex- 
travagant opinions/ There was a mythological 
and allegorical fete at Trianon, where a young 
Hebe particularly charmed the august spectators. 
It was — how can one record it without a pang ? 
— Madame Elizabeth / The royal family wished 
also to make good the reputation of French 
hospitality. At Mouceaux {sic), in the gardens 
of the Due de Chartres, * after having traversed 
a thousand winding byways, arched over with 
sycamores, lilac-trees, Italian poplars, and a thou- 
sand shrubs of the Indies; after having breathed 
the fresh air, and rested on plots of grass and 
wild thyme, visited rustic huts and crumbling 
Gothic manor-houses, the Comte and Comtesse 
du Nord partook of the simple repast of the 
labouring shepherds.' 

At Paris the passage of their Highnesses, 
coinciding with the effervescence of Russian 
sympathies that we have noted above, had almost 
the air of a triumphal progress. Everywhere 
agreeable surprises were in store for the visitors. 
At the Royal Library, a number of Russian 
books were taken down for the Grand Duke's 
benefit from the shelves, where no doubt they 
found few readers, and the librarian, Desolnais, 
called his attention to a volume that had served, 
said he, in the education of a prince whom Paris 
had long learned to admire, and was now learning 
to love. It was a manual composed for the use 
of Paul himself by the Archbishop Plato. Their 
Highnesses did their utmost to repay all this 
courtesy. After having reviewed Marshal Biron's 



404 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

regiment of Gardes-francaises, the Grand Duchess 
sent to the marshal a gracious letter, enclosing 
ten bank-notes of 1200 francs, for the soldiers to 
drink the health of their chief. The parsimony, 
a forced parsimony indeed, of Paul in 1776 was 
still remembered at Berlin, where the Grand Duke 
had come to marry his second wife. Imperious 
orders from St. Petersburg had cut short his 
generous intentions. The proceeding was much 
criticised, even at Paris, and the present differ- 
ence was all the more appreciated. There was, 
however, the painful incident of Clerisseau. 
Paul, naturally, was surrounded in the capital 
of arts and letters by the literary clique with 
which his mother was connected. He did not 
always give it satisfaction, or consider all its 
susceptibilities. But for the distance which separ- 
ated Paris from St. Petersburg, Catherine herself 
might not have succeeded. Madame d'Ober- 
kirch relates this scene in her memoirs, much as 
follows. The scene took place at the house of 
M. de la Reyniere, now occupied by the Cercle 
de 1' Union Artistique. M. de la Reyniere was 
a wealthy fermier~gdndral y and his house, which 
was decorated by the best artists in Paris, 
Clerisseau at their head, was famed as one of 
the wonders of the city. Paul wished to see it. 
He had already been introduced to the irascible 
architect, and he had not been too attentive to 
him : so at least Clerisseau thought, and he had 
written a letter to Prince Bariatinski, the Grand 
Dukes aide-de-camp — a very dignified letter, 
according to Grimm— in which he had stated 
that he would acquaint the Empress with the 
reception that persons honoured by her esteem 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 405 

met with from her son. A few days after, the 
artist and the prince met in the dining-room 
of de la Reyniere's house, one of Clerisseau's 
masterpieces. On entering, the Comte du Nord 
perceived a man who bowed without speaking. 
Paul returned the bow, but the man barred the 
way. 

' What do you want, Monsieur ? * 

' You do not recognise me, Monseigneur ? ' 

' I recognise you perfectly ; you are the Sieur 
Clerisseau.' 

1 Why then do you not speak to me?' 

1 Because I have nothing to say.' 

' Then you are going to be here as you were 
at home, Monseigneur, slight me, treat me as a 
stranger ; I, the architect of the Empress, and 
in correspondence with her ! And I have written 
to her, to complain of your unworthy treatment 
of me.' 

'Write her also, then, that you are hindering 
me from passing, Monsieur. She will certainly 
thank you for it.' 

The version that Grimm gives of the incident, 
in his correspondence with Catherine, is quite 
different, and it seems to us more probable. It 
was Paul who first made overtures to Clerisseau, 
wishing to repair the wrongs he might have done 
him, showing himself most amiable, and recalling 
the flattering words that he had used on their 
first meeting. But Clerisseau cut short these 
tardy demonstrations; — 

' Monsieur le Comte, you may have intended 
to say all that to me, but I heard nothing of it/ 

'You must have neither ears nor memory, 
then,' said Paul, with some heat. 



4o6 CA THERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

With this, some people coming up just then, the 
conversation ended. ' Never was I so uncivilly 
used,' said the Grand Duke, laughing, to those 
about him; 4 it gave me quite a shock/ The 
Grand Duchess tried to smooth over matters ; 
but Clerisseau was unmanageable, and ended 
by becoming rude. The Princess having asked 
him to send her the plan and sketches of a salon 
that she had admired, he replied dryly— 

* I will send them to my august benefactress, 
where Madame la Comtesse can have them.' 

Catherine did not, in this circumstance, attempt 
to justify her architect against the heir to her 
throne; she knew too well the interests of her 
rank and dignity ; but the incident doubtless 
left an unpleasant impression on her mind : 
she was only too much disposed to think her 
son and heir a clumsy creature. The letters that 
she sent to the travellers, during their absence, 
were, however, always affectionately maternal It 
would seem even as if this separation exercised 
a calming influence over her mind. When he 
was 'present, and by her side, Paul became a 
menace and a source of perpetual uneasiness. 
Had it not been publicly stated that she was 
only awaiting his coming of age to restore to 
him his own, that is to say, the place that she 
herself occupied ? 

in 

After his return these disagreements grew 
worse. Paul and his wife complained that the 
Empress took out of their hands the education of 
their children. At the time of the Crimean tour, 



FAMILY LIFE—THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 407 

Catherine had wished to take with her the little 
Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine. This 
time the parents' objections were so strong that 
she hesitated to go against them. But questions 
of policy played a considerable part in the 
quarrel, which grew worse from day to day. In 
July 1783 the Marquis de Verac, then French 
minister at St. Petersburg, wishing to prevent a 
conflict between Russia and Turkey, renewed the 
representations that the Court of Versailles never 
ceased to urge, and complained of the unfavour- 
able, almost scornful, reception that was given 
them on the part of the Empress and her 
ministers ; he insisted in these terms on an 
antagonism in which he saw some hope for the 
future : ' The Grand Duke is entirely opposed to 
all this system of ideas ; this Prince, brought up 
in the wise principles of the late Count Panine, 
regards with mortal dissatisfaction the deplorable 
state to w r hich the empire has come through the 
boundless prodigality of the Empress. He con- 
siders the plan of campaign against the Turks a 
project likely to lead Russia to utter ruin, and he 
is personally much incensed against the Emperor, 
whom he regards as the prime mover in the 
matter/ 

When the war had broken out, Catherine 
objected to the Grand Duke's taking part in it. 
' It would be a fresh inconvenience,' she wrote to 
Patiomkine, She allowed him to go to Finland, 
during the Swedish war ; but Knorring, who 
commanded the army in the field, declared after- 
wards that he had been commanded not to 
communicate to his Highness any plan of opera- 
tions. In 1789, when there was question of a 



4o8 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

rupture with Prussia, the situation of Paul 
assumed a certain likeness, irritating for Catherine, 
but still more threatening for him, with that 
occupied by Peter during the last years of 
Elizabeth's reign. Dark rumours were in the 
air. The famous Greek project of the Empress 
was yet another source of continual conflict : on 
the part of the Grand Duke it met with open 
opposition. Finally, in the course of the changes 
which came about from year to year in those who 
were about the Empress, Paul sometimes went 
so far as to forget his duty as a son, and, in 
return, the favourites, whether Patiomkine or 
Zoubof, did not feel obliged to be very respectful 
to his Highness. One day, at table, the Grand 
Duke having approved of an idea put forward 
by Zoubof, * Have I said anything stupid ? ' said 
he. 

The young count was frequently in difficulties 
about money. In 1793, when Catherine was 
engaged in looking through the accounts of the 
court banker, Sutherland, who had made some 
bad speculations, and was on the point of sus- 
pending payment, her secretary, Dierjavine, 
comes, in his enumeration of the assets, to a sum 
due to the banker ' from a person in high position, 
but who has the misfortune not to be loved by 
the Empress.' Catherine was not long in dis- 
covering who was meant. ' How absurd ! ' she 
cries ; ' what does he want with such sums ? ' 
Dierjavine ventures to observe that the late 
Prince Patiomkine had been accustomed to borrow 
much larger sums ; he points out some in Suther- 
land's assets. The Empress pays no heed, and 
the examination of the accounts goes on. They 



FAMILY LIFE—THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 409 

come to another item of the ' person in high 
position.' ' Another !' cries Catherine, furiously. 
' No wonder, after that, Sutherland became 
bankrupt ! ' Dierjavine thinks the occasion 
favourable to pay a bad turn to the new favourite, 
Plato Zoubof, by whom he does not consider 
himself sufficiently well paid. He turns to a 
long sum recently put to his account. The 
Empress, without replying, rings a bell. 1 Is 
there any one in the secretary's room ? ' she asks. 
There is Vassili Stiepanovitch Popof. * Send 
him in.' Popof enters. 'Sit down there, and do 
not leave me till the end of this report. This 
gentleman ' (pointing to Dierjavine) ' wishes to 
come to blows with me, I think.' 

At this period the Grand Duke lives with his 
wife at Gatchina or Pavlovsk, entirely apart from 
his mother and also from his children, who are 
with her, and whom he sometimes does not see 
for months together. To see them he requires 
the permission of Count Saltykof, their governor. 
We have already spoken of the opinion, general 
enough during the last years of Catherine's reign, 
according to which she intended to disinherit her 
son. This measure was hoped for by a large 
number of persons. A manifesto deciding this 
important point was anxiously expected. It was 
thought that it would appear on January 1, 1797. 
According to one version, the manifesto was 
already drawn up, and was intended to inaugurate 
constitutional government in Russia under the 
sceptre of Alexander, the character of Paul being 
utterly opposed to the adoption of this form of 
government. In the memoirs of Engelhardt, in 
a fragment of the memoirs of Dierjavine, which 
27 



410 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

has been preserved, there is, on the other hand, 
some reference to a testament of the Empress, 
having the same object, except for the enigmatic 
and doubtful introduction of constitutionalism, so 
little in accord with the ideas then prevailing in 
the mind of Catherine. The Ode written by 
Dierjavine for the coronation of Alexander seems 
to allude to it, as well as a curious document 
which circulated after the death of the Empress 
under the title, Catherine II. in the Elysian 
Fields. The sovereign reproaches Bezborodko, 
to whom the testament in question was supposed 
to have been confided, with having inflicted the 
reign of Paul on her country. 

It is certain that in alluding, frequently enough, 
in her correspondence, to the future of Russia 
after her death, Catherine never speaks of the 
reign of her son. It is always Alexander whom 
she speaks of as her heir. According to certain 
authorities, she finally took stringent measures 
against the difficulties that she anticipated on the 
part of the natural heir. 

Mother and son now met only in official 
ceremonies. They exchanged ceremonious 
letters. During the very short visit of the Grand 
Duke to the army in Finland, where he soon 
discovered that he had nothing to do, the cor- 
respondence is almost daily. It recalls a little 
that of the King of Spain with Maria of 
Neubourg, in the version that Victor Hugo has 
given of it. Here is a specimen :— 

' My dear Mother, — The letter of your Imperial 
Majesty has caused me the greatest pleasure, 
and I am deeply touched by what is said in it. 
I beg her to accept the expression of my grati- 



FA MIL Y LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 411 

tilde, and at the same time that of the respect 
and affection with which I am . . 

Here is Catherine's reply : — 

* I have received, my dear son, your letter of 
the 5th, with the expression of your sentiments, 
to which mine respond. Good-bye. I hope 
you are well.' 

The letters are all after this fashion, almost 
without variation. 

IV 

What bears witness against Catherine in these 
unhappy events — the seamy side of the splen- 
dours of the great reign — is the way in which 
she acted in regard to another son, in whom 
there was nothing to alarm her ambition or her 
responsibility as a sovereign. She had, as we 
know, a second son, a love-child, who was known 
as Bobrinski. Did she love him? It does not 
seem so. Did she look after his welfare? She 
gave him enough to live comfortably, to travel 
abroad, and even to commit some extravagances. 
He carried them to excess : she hears of it, 
and betrays an astonishing indifference on the 
subject. 

' What,' she writes to Grimm, * is this affair of 
Bobrinski? The young man is singularly un- 
concerned. ... If you could manage to find 
out the state of his affairs at Paris, you would 
oblige me. . . . However, he ought to be well 
able to pay his way ; he has 30,000 roubles a 
year.' 

Two years afterwards she writes— 

' It is tiresome that M. Bobrinski will get into 



412 CA THERINE II. OF R US SI A 

debt ; he knows the amount of his income, 
and is quite honest, Beyond that, he has 
nothing/ 

It is thus that she announces her resolution 
not to meet the debts of this son ; beyond the 
modest quota that she allows him, he and his 
creditors must not count upon her. And she 
keeps her word. At the end of 1787 young 
Bobrinski is in Paris, in the greatest distress, 
several million francs in arrears, besides the 
amount that he owes in London, whence he has 
just fled his creditors. For one thing, he has 
given the Marquis de Ferrieres a bill of credit 
for 1,400,000 francs. Catherine up to now has 
made no attempt to arrest this disordered career. 
She now makes up her mind to act ; she recalls 
the young man to Russia, and confines him to 
Revel, where she has all his movements carefully 
watched, without, however, caring to see him or 
to know what becomes of him. As long as he 
leaves her in peace, and does not ask her for 
money, and she does not hear him referred to, 
she is quite satisfied. 

Nothing could be more definite than that. 
But is there no touch of nature in the heart of 
this insensible mother? How can we maintain 
the contrary? But how also can we affirm it? 
We have seen her relations with her son. But 
now let us see her relations with her grand- 
children. From 1779 onwards, every day at half- 
past ten, the little Alexander is brought to her. 
4 I have said it to you before and I say it to you 
again,' she writes to Grimm, ' I dote on the little 
monkey. . . . Every day we make new acquaint- 
ances, that is to say that of every toy we make 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 413 

ten or twelve, and we try which of the two can 
best develop his talents. It is extraordinary how 
industrious we have become. . . . After dinner 
my little monkey comes back as often as he likes, 
and he spends three or four hours a day in my 
room.' The same year she begins to teach his 
ABC to 4 Mr. Alexander, who cannot yet talk, 
and who is only a year and a half old.' As we 
have seen, she makes his clothes for him. ' This 
is how he has been dressed ever since he was six 
months old,' she says, when sending to Grimm 
the facsimile of a costume of her invention. ' All 
that is sewn together, and goes on at once, and 
fastens behind with four or five little hooks. 
There is no ligature anywhere, and the child 
scarcely knows that he is being dressed : his 
arms and legs are put into the dress at once, and 
it is all done ; it is a stroke of genius on my part, 
this dress. The King of Sweden and the Prince 
of Prussia have demanded and received a pattern 
of the dress of Mr. Alexander.' Then come the 
inevitable anecdotes that we find in the letters of 
all mothers, in which are narrated day by day 
the great deeds of the infant prodigy, the clever 
sayings, the indications of intelligence, ' wonder- 
ful for his age.' One day when the precious 
'little monkey' is ill and shivering with fever, 
Catherine finds him at the door of her room, 
wrapped up in a great cloak. She asks what that 
is for, and the child replies, ' It is a sentinel dying 
of cold.' One day he asks one of the Empress's 
femmes de chambre whom he is like. ' Your 
mother,' she replies ; ' you have all her features, 
her nose, her mouth.' 4 No, not that ; but my 
temper, my ways, what are they like ? ' ' Oh, in 



414 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



that you are more like grandmamma than any- 
body.' Thereupon the little Grand Duke throws 
his arms round the old woman's neck, and kisses 
her effusively. ' That is what I wanted you to 

say ! ' 

This story is very significant in regard to the 
place that Paul and Catherine occupied respec- 
tively in this family, in which the widow of 
Peter III. usurps all the supremacy. Read one 
more passage from a letter to Grimm, referring to 
the adored little being : 4 He will, to my thinking, 
become a most wonderful personage indeed, 
provided the secondaterie does not hinder his 
progress.' 

Secondat, secondaterie, are words after the 
manner of Catherine, used by her to describe her 
son and her daughter-in-law, as well as the 
educational, political, and all kinds of ideas that 
prevail at Pavlovsk, and are in general entirely 
opposed to her own. 

The little Constantine does not at first get into 
the good graces of his grandmother to the same 
extent as his brother. Catherine finds him too 
frail, too delicate, for an Empress's grandson. 
' As for the other,' she says, after having spoken 
enthusiastically of Alexander, 1 1 would not give 
ten sous for him ; I am very much mistaken if he 
is likely to live very long.' But by and by the 
younger wins his way. With time the child 
grows and becomes stronger, and, dreams of 
Byzantine sovereignty showing themselves on 
the horizon, the affection of Catherine awakens 
little by little for the nursling of, the Greek 
Helen. 

Alas ! it must needs be said that her state 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 415 

policy plays its part, and even a main part, in 
this chapter of the great sovereign's history. 
Policy ! we are sure to find that wherever we 
follow Catherine: in her feelings as in her 
thoughts, in her likes as in her dislikes, and her 
family feelings themselves make no exception to 
the rule. It is there, to our mind, that we must 
seek the starting-point and the solution of all the 
doubts, all the enigmas, to which the study that 
this book is devoted to may give rise. Naturally, 
as we think, in this woman, who, in certain sides 
of her character and certain details of her conduct, 
deserves all reprobation, as on other sides she 
merits all the praise, the moral sensibility, without 
being of a high order, was neither absent, as 
some have fancied, nor yet deadened, nor vitiated 
and reduced to the level of the lowest instincts. 
Her heart was on a level with her mind, which, 
as we have intimated, never reached a very great 
elevation. She could love, but she subordinated 
love, as she subordinated everything else, to the 
motive force of her life, which was of exceptional 
force and vigour : she lived, above all things, by 
and for politics. At one time she loved the 
handsome Orlof because he was handsome, but 
also because he declared that he would risk his 
life to give her a crown, and she believed him 
capable of carrying out his word. She was cold 
and even harsh towards Paul, a little because she 
had not had the leisure to develop the maternal 
sentiments, thwarted from the cradle, but very 
much because she saw in him a dangerous riva7 
in the present, and a pitiful successor in the 
future. She manifested a passionate affection for 
the little Alexander under the influence of just 



4i6 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

opposite causes, in the same category of ideas 
and feelings. 

The letters that she wrote to her grandchildren 
when she was away from them, in 1783, during 
her stay in Finland, in 1785, when she spent 
some time in Moscow, and in 1787, during her 
Crimean tour, are full of freshness, of communi- 
cative warmth, of loving abandonment. It was a 
great trial to her not to have them with her on 
the fairyland roads of Taurida. It was a reason 
of economy that decided her to cut short the 
endless negotiations, on this subject, between St. 
Petersburg and Pavlovsk : every day's delay cost 
her 12,000 roubles. One may judge from that 
what must have been the total expense of the 
tour, which all Europe looked on in wonder- 
ment. 

Catherine had the opportunity, in directing 
the education of Alexander and Constantine, of 
applying her own theories in the matter. Her 
success seems to have been doubtful. The sove- 
reign was almost alone, it would seem, in being 
satisfied with the progress of her scholars. La 
Harpe, among others, did not share her opinion. 
He had often to complain of the bad instincts and 
defects that he found in the elder. He gives 
several unpleasant enough traits. In 1796 the 
visit of the young King of Sweden caused 
comparisons to be made, not to the advantage of 
the two boys. Catherine, however, did her best, 
not allowing her affection to hinder her from a 
sometimes necessary severity. One day she 
noticed that in changing the squad on guard 
under the windows of the palace the men were 
kept under arms longer than was needful : it was 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 417 

a sight intended for the little Grand Dukes. She 
immediately sent for their tutor, and reprimanded 
him severely. The service of the state, the 
military service in particular, was not made for 
the amusement of children. If the Grand Dukes 
complained, they were to be informed that grand- 
mamma had forbidden it. This was an accidental 
instance of a very wise principle. But perhaps 
the system as a whole was less wise. 

Catherine was much concerned, and she was 
the only one to concern herself, as to the marriage 
of her grandchildren. The parents were not even 
consulted. Paul was scarcely consulted, indeed, 
in regard to his own marriage. Eleven German 
princesses were successively brought to Russia 
by the sovereign, solicitous as to the well-being of 
her son and her grandchildren : three Princesses 
of Darmstadt, three Princesses of Wurtemberg, 
two Princesses of Baden, and three Princesses of 
Coburg. Choice was to be made from the lot. 
The Princesses of Wurtemberg only went as far 
as Berlin, Frederick having insisted on Paul being 
sufficiently gallant to come half way to meet his 
fiancee. It was Prince Henry of Prussia, who 
was at St. Petersburg in 1776, who arranged the 
marriage. The eldest of the Princesses was 
already promised to the Prince of Darmstadt, but 
it was understood that he would give her up if, 
as Prince Henry wrote to his brother, 'he had 
the least good feeling,' and did not desire to 
trouble the happiness of two states/ The Prince 
of Darmstadt did indeed prove his * good feeling.' 
Being deprived of the eldest, he turned his 
attention to the younger, ' because, at bottom, 
that came to the same thing.' Besides, as 



4i8 



CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 



Frederick gave him to understand, the father of 
the Princess had not waited to consult him before 
'playing for the biggest stake that presented 
itself to his daughter.' He had had no difficulty 
beyond that of finding a Lutheran minister suf- 
ficiently ' enlightened ' to make the future Grand 
Duchess understand that she would please God 
by changing her religion. But, as the court of 
St. Petersburg had sent 40,000 roubles for the 
cost of the Princess's journey, 'a real help/ as 
their mother said, to the rickety finances of the 
family, that difficulty was soon overcome. 

Two years later, the Princesses of Darmstadt 
went all the way to St. Petersburg. Then came 
the turn of the two Princesses of Baden- Durlach. 
As they were orphans, the Countess Chouvalof, 
widow of the author of the Epitre a Ninon, was 
sent to bring them over; and she was accom- 
panied by a certain Strekalof, who appears to 
have conducted himself like a Cossack who had 
been ordered to carry off girls into Georgia. But 
the German courts were not susceptible at this 
time. On the arrival of the Princesses, the 
Empress asked to see their trousseau. Having 
examined it, she said, ' My friends, I was not so 
rich as you when I arrived in Russia/ 

The elder remained in Russia, and married 
Alexander ; the younger returned to her own 
country : Constantine would not have her. She 
was only fourteen, and not yet developed. Later 
on she married the King of Sweden. The fetes 
which were given on the occasion of the marriage 
of Alexander mark the last brilliant and happy 
moment of the reign of Catherine. The following 
epithalamium was composed :— 



FAMILY LIFE— THE GRAND DUKE PAUL 419 

• Ni la reine de Thebes au milieu de ses filles, 
Ni Louis et ses fils assemblant les families, 
Ne formerent jamais un cercle si pompeux. 
Trois generations vont fleurir devant elle, 
Et c'est Elle toujours qui charmera nos yeux. 
Fiere d'etre leur mere et non d'etre immortelle : 
Telle est Junon parmi les dieux ! ' 

The year after, the arrival of the Princess of 
Saxe-Coburg with her three daughters produced 
less effect. This time Catherine considered that 
the belongings of their Highnesses were quite 
too mean. Her own penury at the time of her 
arrival in Russia was exceeded. The wardrobe 
of the family had to be renewed before it was 
presentable to the court, and Constantine, in 
spite of all, was still unsatisfied. He ended, 
however, by deciding on the youngest. 

Catherine, then, resolutely disregarded certain 
family affections and responsibilities imposed on 
her both by nature and the proprieties ; she 
entered into others with at least equal intensity. 
We have pointed out the most admissible solu- 
tion, in our eyes, of this moral problem ; we do 
not profess that it answers every objection. 
But, with regard to the great figures of history, 
there are many of these insoluble enigmas, in 
which no one can say the last word. 



CHAPTER III 

PRIVATE LIFE — FAVOURITISM 
I 

There is a whole legend in regard to the love 
affairs of Catherine. We shall try to replace it 



420 CA THER1NE II. OF RUSSIA 

by a few pages of history. It is certainly not in 
the character of historian that Laveaux has re- 
corded Catherine's first taste of intrigue, at a 
time when she had not yet arrived in Russia. 
Even at Stettin she would have had as lover a 
Count B., who imagined that he was marrying 
her, when leading one of her friends to the altar. 
It is an absurd fabrication. The small courts of 
Germany were certainly not temples of virtue ; 
nevertheless, at the age of fourteen, princesses 
were not exactly on the streets. Afterwards, at 
Moscow and at St. Petersburg, Laveaux shows us 
Catherine abandoning herself to the first comer, 
in the house of a Countess J., where she had in- 
numerable lovers, who had no idea who she was. 
Saltykof gives place to a Venetian actor named 
Dalolio, who, in turn, arranges new rendezvous for 
his mistress of a day in the house of Ielaguine. 
In all this Laveaux echoes mere on dits without the 
slightest shadow of proof. Sabatier de Cabre is a 
witness really well informed and really serious, and 
one, too, who cannot be suspected of partiality. 
Now, in a memorandum drawn up by him in 1772, 
we read : ' Though not free from reproach, she is 
far from the excess of which she has been accused ; 
nothing has been proved beyond the three known 
connections — with M. Saltykof, the King of 
Poland, and Count Orlof.' 

On arriving in Russia, Catherine finds a court 
and society, we dare not say more debauched than 
those of the other great European centres, but at 
least equally so, and, to crown it all, a form of 
regal debauchery, similar also, though with an 
inversion of roles, to the examples afforded 
elsewhere by the morals of the time, by French 



PRIVA TE LIFE— FA VO URITISM 42 1 

royalty among others. This is favouritism. 
Since the death of Peter I. the throne of Russia 
has been constantly occupied by women ; they 
have lovers, as Louis XV. has mistresses, and, 
when the imperial lover is called Biron, he is as 
powerful in Russia as a royal mistress, when she 
is called Pompadour, can be in France. As 
Louis XIV. married Madame de Maintenon, so 
Elizabeth marries Razoumofski. He is only the 
son of a little Russian peasant, once choir-boy in 
the imperial chapel ; but Scarron's widow is of 
no very illustrious line. Choubine, who had 
preceded Razoumofski, was a mere soldier in 
the Guards : he was at all events the equivalent 
of the du Barry. And, going back a little further, 
when, by the cradle of Louis XIV., royalty had 
provisionally fallen to the female line, the presence 
of Signor Mazarini on the steps of the throne 
must have seemed not less extraordinary to the 
people who are easily astonished than, a hundred 
and fifty years later, that of Patiomkine. Need 
one even, to parallel the favourites of Catherine, 
go back so far ? Struensee, Godoy, Lord Acton, 
are contemporaries. 

Favouritism in Russia is what it is or has been 
elsewhere, allowing for the difference of scale. It 
is just this which gives it, under the reign of 
Catherine, a place apart. This time it is a 
woman who has the gift of going to extremes 
in everything. She has favourites, as Elizabeth 
and Anne have had ; but urged by her tempera- 
ment, her character, her inclination to do things 
grandly, she gives unparalleled proportions to 
this usual, traditional order or disorder of things. 
Anne merely made Biihren the groom a Duke of 



422 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA 

Courland ; Catherine makes Poniatowski King of 
Poland. Elizabeth was content with two ad- 
mitted favourites, Razoumofski and Chouvalof ; 
Catherine has them by dozens. Nor is this all. 
Her mind is not only of vast reach, scorning the 
ordinary limits, passionately desirous of what lies 
beyond ; it is also, and especially, imperious, 
absolute, disregardful of established rules, but 
readily turning into rule or law the inspiration of 
the moment, will or caprice. With Anne and 
Elizabeth, favouritism is a mere caprice ; with 
Catherine it becomes almost an institution of state. 

It is only gradually, however, that things reach 
this height. Up to 1772 Catherine is merely a 
sovereign who takes her pleasures as all those 
who preceded her on the same throne have done. 
Her caprices are talked of just as were those of 
Elizabeth, in the most unconcerned way. Writ- 
ing to Frederick, the Comte de Solms does, it 
is true, a propos of Gregory Orlof, make this 
observation, that ' one might find to-day artisans 
and lackeys who have been seated with him at 
the same table ' ; but he adds, ' One is so ac- 
customed to favouritism in Russia, so little sur- 
prised at any rapid ascent, that one can but 
applaud the choice of a young man who is mild 
and polished in his manners, who betrays neither 
pride nor vanity, who lives with his old acquaint- 
ances on the same terms of familiarity, and never 
loses sight of them in the crowd, avoiding mixing 
himself up in affairs, except sometimes to recom- 
mend a friend.' Gregory Orlof, it is true, does 
not long content himself, or rather Catherine is 
not contented on his behalf, with this modest and 
retiring part, and the Comte de Solms writes 



PRIVATE LIFE-FAVOURITISM 



423 



later on : ' Her Majesty's passion having in- 
creased, she has wished to bring Orlof into 
affairs. She has put him into the commissions 
established for the reform of government.' And 
it is then, if we may believe the Prussian am- 
bassador, that discontent breaks out. The 
hetman Razoumofski, Count Boutourline, both 
generals aides-de-camp, do not willingly suffer 
that a man who has been so far below them, 
just before, should now become their equal. 
Other lords, princes, and generals are scandal- 
ised at being obliged to wait in the Sieur Orlof's 
antechamber, to be admitted to his lever. Count 
Cheremetief, the high chamberlain, one of the 
first and wealthiest lords of the land, as well as 
all whom their offices oblige to accompany the 
Empress's carriage on horseback, see with dis- 
satisfaction the favourite seated in the coach 
beside their sovereign, while they trot by at 
the side. 

But that is an old tale, and those of the great 
Russian lords who remember the favouritism of 
Biron under the reign of the Empress Anne, the 
Bironovchtchina, as the detested period has been 
called, must find the present state of things very 
acceptable in comparison, especially as Gregory 
Orlof rarely shows much inclination to avail him- 
self of the somewhat forced part that the loving 
attentions of Catherine impose upon him in the 
government of the country. His ambitious fits 
are few and far between. Generally, as we have 
pointed out, he merely obeys the exigencies of 
the sovereign in this respect, and with a con- 
strained and unwilling air. He is backward and 
retiring, a lover of voluptuous ease, careless and 



\ 



424 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

inoffensive. On the giddy heights, in the intoxi- 
cating atmosphere, where the stroke of fortune 
has suddenly raised him, he lives in a half dream, 
and a day comes when his reason gives way 
altogether, sinking into the black abyss of 
madness. 

With him the weakness of Catherine has an 
excuse, a defence ; the man has risked his life 
for her, the man has given her a crown, and she 
loves him, or imagines she loves him, with a love 
not only of the senses. Separated from him, she 
will suffer in all his sufferings, and at his death 
she will shed real tears, tears coming from the 
heart. 

The scandal really commences only after the 
disgrace of this first favourite. With Vassiltch- 
kof, in 1772, it is the mere lust of the flesh, gross 
and shameless. With Patiomkine, in 1774, it 
is the division of power with mere chance lovers 
that enters into the history of the reign. Then 
comes the long procession of passing favours : in 
June 1778 the Englishman Harris announces the 
elevation of Korssakof ; in August, he speaks of 
competitors who are already canvassing his suc- 
cession, some supported by Patiomkine, others 
by Panine and Orlof acting in concert ; in Sep- 
tember, it is a certain Strahof, ' a low buffoon/ 
who seems to win the day ; four months after, 
it is a major of the Siemionofski Guards, a 
certain Levachof, a young man protected by the 
Countess Bruce, Svieikofski, stabs himself in 
despair at seeing a rival preferred to himself. 
Then Korssakof seems once more to gain the 
upper hand. He struggles with a new com- 
petitor, Stianof, then is blotted out entirely by 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 425 

Lanskoi, who is replaced by Mamonof, who 
struggles in turn with Miloradovitch and Mik- 
lachefski ; and so on, and so on. It is the rising 
of a tide that is to go on for ever ; in 1 792, at 
sixty-three years of age, Catherine begins again 
with Plato Zoubof, and probably also with his 
brother, the same old story that has been gone 
over with twenty predecessors. 

Whatever may be the energy of her character, 
the firmness of her mind, and the good opinion 
that she has of her own abilities, Catherine does 
not profess that they can suffice to themselves and 
to her for the accomplishment of her task ; she 
feels the need of support from a virile mind and 
resolution, however inferior these may be to hers 
in actual value. And she proves this necessity ! 
When she writes to Patiomkine that without 
him ' she is without arms,' it is not a mere phrase. 
In 1788, when the favourite is in the Crimea, 
the letters that her confidential agent, Garnofski, 
sends to him, from St. Petersburg are full of 
pressing objurgations/showing the urgent need 
of his return, as much on account of the disorder 
into which his absence has thrown affairs, as of 
the state in which the Empress herself is, 1 de- 
jected, subject to constant terrors, and vacillat- 
ing from lack of support.' And it is here, too, 
that the part played in history by the conqueror 
of the Crimea and his fellows differs from the ex- 
amples given at the same time, at the other end 
of Europe, by feminine favouritism : Louis XV. 
simply endures the influence of his mistresses 
and their intervention in affairs of government : 
Catherine encourages and demands it. 

Nor is this all. Lanskoi, Zoubof, are twenty- 
28 



426 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

two when they succeed to the place of Patiom- 
kine. Now Nicholas Saltykof, who retains his 
freedom of speech with the Empress, expressing 
his astonishment at a choice so utterly out of 
keeping with the age of the sovereign, she makes 
this reply, which may perhaps cause a smile, but 
which contains a characteristic trait of the 'eter- 
nal feminine ' : ' Well, I am serving the empire in 
the education of such capable young men/ And 
she believes it ! In her anxiety to initiate these 
young 'scholars' of a particular kind into the 
handling of the great interests of the state, there 
is really a sort of maternity. And it is thus that 
in her the irremediable weaknesses of a woman's 
nature join with her highest vocation in necessi- 
tating the presence and assistance of the male 
near this proud and headstrong female autocrat. 

' Educated ' by her, trained, rough-hewn* raised 
from step to step, rapidly, it is true, in the hier- 
archy of high civil and military functions, Pa- 
tiomkine finally cuts a certain figure as all-pow- 
erful minister. When a whim of the sovereign 
installs him for a few months in the special 
suite of rooms communicating with the Em- 
press's by an inner staircase, Zovitch is merely a 
major in the Hussars. He comes afterwards to 
fill an important place in the history of national 
education. We are not inventing : this favour- 
ite was the first to conceive of a military school 
modelled on the foreign establishments of the 
kind. At Chklof, a magnificent estate near 
Mohilef, which was given him as a residence 
after his disgrace, a school founded by him 
for the children of poor gentle-folk served as 
nucleus for the establishment of the Corps de 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 427 



Cadets of Moscow, now the principal military 
gymnasium of the city. 

Doubtless, such miracles came about through 
a peculiar concourse of circumstances presiding 
over the material and moral development of the 
great empire, become so entirely her own. But 
the complete history of her life is unintelligible ; 
indeed, none such is possible, when it is not seen in 
this light. With Zovitch, Patiomkine, Mamonof, 
and ten others, the court of Catherine is quite 
that of Gerolstein, but a Gerolstein in which the 
comic, the grotesque, and the extravagant com- 
bine with serious elements, which make of this 
amalgam one of the most singular pages in the 
annals of the world. The Russia of to-day is 
still a unique country, existing, so to speak, on 
the verge of the European community ; and 
Catherine was also a most extraordinary woman. 
These two conditions were required in order that 
it might be possible for operatic heroes to thus 
enact by her side, on one of the great stages of 
the universe, the great parts of the human drama. 
But these conditions being realised, and the 
history of the Russia of that day being thus played 
out amid pantomime scenery, it would be idle to 
try to explain it on the ordinary lines of analysis, 
which belong to the ordinary run of things. 

Lastly, from a final point of view, favouritism 
such as Catherine practised was by no means the 
reign of sensuality pure and simple, blindly 
reaching after ever new pleasures. There was 
method in the madness of Hamlet ; and in the 
veins of Catherine there was a little Danish blood. 
As we have said, she made of favouritism an 
institution. 



428 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



II 

We read, under date September 17, 1778, the 
following lines in the despatch of the day sent 
from St. Petersburg to the Comte de Vergennes 
by M. de Corberon : — 

'We may observe in Russia a sort of inter- 
regnum in affairs, caused by the displacement of 
one favourite and the installation of his successor. 
This event eclipses everything else. On it hang 
all the interests of a certain side of things, and 
even the cabinet ministers, succumbing to the 
general influence, suspend their operations until 
the choice has been made, and things fall back 
into the accustomed groove, and the machine is 
once more in proper order/ 

All this is an essential part of the machinery of 
government, and, this once lacking, everything 
comes to a dead stop. The interregnums are, 
however, as a rule of very short duration. Only 
one lasts for several months, between the death 
of Lanskoi (1784) and the succession of Iermolof. 
Generally it is a matter of twenty-four hours, and 
the slightest ministerial crisis is a much more 
serious inconvenience to-day. There is no lack 
of candidates. The place is good, and those 
whose ambition it tempts are legion. In the 
regiments of the Guards, the traditional home of 
vremienchtchiks (favourites), there are always two 
or three handsome officers who turn their eyes in 
the direction of the imperial palace with a hope 
and longing more or less concealed. From time 
to time one of them makes his appearance at 
court, introduced by some great personage, who 
tries his chance of making a ' creature ' for him- 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 429 

self, and in a post which is the source of all riches 
and honours. In 1774 a nephew of Count Zahar 
Tchernichef, a Prince Kantemir, young, dissolute, 
deep in debt, beau garfon, prowls for some weeks 
around the Empress. Twice, pretending to have 
lost his way, he reaches the private apartments of 
the Empress. The third time, he finds her, falls 
on his knees, and begs her to use him as she will. 
She rings, he is seized, put in a kibitka, and sent 
back to his uncle, who is advised to teach his 
nephew a little wisdom. Catherine is indulgent 
for this kind of folly. Patiomkine, more for- 
tunate, makes his way by a bold stroke almost 
exactly similar. In general, however, this post, so 
much sought after, is the price of some intriguing. 
After 1 776 it is Patiomkine, now honorary favourite, 
who brings forward deputies discovered, trained, 
and managed by him, and offers them to the 
choice of the sovereign. But both they and 
he have no easy task to keep the position, once 
attained : an absence, an illness, a momentary 
default, are enough to ruin all their chances. 
The very name, so expressive in Russian (vremia 
means time, moment ; vremienchtchik, the man of 
the moment) tells the chosen ones that the favour 
is fleeting. In 1772 it is at Fokchany, where he 
has gone to negotiate peace with Turkey, that 
Gregory Orlof learns of the installation of Vassil- 
tchikof in the place that he has imprudently 
quitted. He sets out at full speed, covers 2000 
miles without stopping, travelling post, without 
sleep, almost without food, in order to reach the 
capital as quickly as he can. In spite of all, he 
arrives too late. In 1704, Lanskoi, fallen ill, has 
recourse to artificial stimulants, which irreparably 



430 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



ruin his health. Sometimes, too, on the height 
by the throne, reached at a bound, these spoilt 
children of fate grow giddy : Zovitch thinks he 
may even defy her who has raised him from 
nothingness. Mamonof even imagines that he 
can share her favour with a court lady, for whom 
he sighs. It is over in an instant : at an evening 
reception, it is noticed that the Empress has 
gazed attentively at some obscure lieutenant, 
presented but just before, or lost sight of till 
then among the crowd of courtiers ; next day, it 
is reported that he has been appointed aide-de- 
camp to her Majesty. What that means is well 
known. Next day he finds himself in the special 
suite of rooms, in which the abode of the favourite 
is as brief as, in our days, are those of the heads 
of departments in the ministerial quarters. The 
rooms are already vacated, and everything is pre- 
pared for the new-comer. All imaginable comfort 
and luxury, a splendidly appointed house, await 
him ; and, on opening a drawer, he finds a hundred 
thousand roubles (about 500,000 francs), the 
usual first gift, a foretaste of Pactolus. That 
evening, before the assembled court, the Empress 
appears, leaning familiarly on his arm, and on the 
stroke of ten, as she retires, the new favourite 
follows her. 

He will never leave the palace except at the 
side of his august mistress. From this moment 
he is a bird in a cage. The cage is fine, but 
it is carefully guarded : the Empress is on her 
guard against accidents, such as the generally 
far from reassuring antecedents of the chosen 
ones might reasonably lead her to fear. And 
it is for this reason, among others, that we can 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 



431 



give no credit to the stories that represent the 
favours of Catherine as shared by casual comers 
and goers. No doubt the place to which Patiom- 
kine, Lanskoi, and so many others have found 
their way is not an inviolate sanctuary ; still, it 
is by no means accessible to the first comer. 
At the outset of her reign, Catherine certainly 
committed some imprudences, which caused her 
no little inconvenience. In 1762 an officer of 
the name of Hrastof, charged with the inventory 
of the wardrobe of the late Empress Elizabeth, 
was accused of making away with 200,000 
roubles'-worth. A woman had been seen wear- 
ing jewels that had belonged to the deceased 
sovereign. She was recognised as one of the 
innumerable mistresses of the favourite, Gregory 
Orlof, who probably shared the fair lady's favours 
with Hrastof. Now, the latter, according to the 
report of the French charge 1 - d 'affaires Berenger, 
had been living for some time in considerable 
intimacy with the new Czarina. 

Since then, Catherine has put all that in order : 
the favourite is a person whose slightest move- 
ments are subjected to an invariable routine and 
a minute scrutiny. He pays no visits, accepts no 
invitations. Once only was Mamonof authorised 
to accept a dinner, to which he had been invited 
by the Comte de Segur. Even then Catherine 
became uneasy, and the French minister and his 
guests, on rising from table, see the Empress's 
coach under the windows : it goes slowly back- 
ward and forward, with a persistence which 
betrays all the distress of the momentarily aban- 
doned lover. A year later, the vremienchtckik 
nearly loses his place through a very natural 



432 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

and a very innocent infraction of the severe 
discipline to which he is subjected. On his 
birthday the Czarina has authorised him to pre- 
sent her with a pair of earrings, which she her- 
self has purchased for the sum of 30,000 roubles. 
The Grand Duchess sees the earrings and 
admires them greatly : upon which Catherine 
makes her a present of them. She puts them 
on, and next day she summons Mamonof to her, 
to thank him for having, however indirectly, 
contributed to this unexpected liberality. He 
is on the point of going, considering himself 
bound to obey a command from one so high 
in position; but the Empress, on finding it out, 
falls into a violent rage ; she apostrophises him 
in violent terms, and sends to the Grand Duchess 
the most severe of reprimands 1 let her take care 
never to do it again ! Paul thinks to make 
himself agreeable by sending to the favourite a 
snuff-box set with diamonds; Catherine allows 
Mamonof to go and thank the Grand Duke, but 
not by himself : she designates the particular 
person who is to accompany him. Paul refuses 
the visit. 

We must add that, on their side, the favourites 
do their best to guard against the danger of an 
unfaithfulness, even accidental, which would put 
them into competition with a rival perhaps 
capable of supplanting them. Their power, and 
it is great, is employed in a vigilance not less 
active than that of Catherine herself. So long 
as Patiomkine is in favour, and he is in favour, 
'honorary' after a certain time, for fifteen years, 
from 1774 to 1789, his imperious will raises an 
insurmountable barrier against every caprice that 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 433 



he does not choose to sanction. He can even, 
at need, use violence to her who, in giving her- 
self to him, has found a master indeed. 

Catherine's choice, it should be noted, falls, 
without exception, on men in the prime of life, 
and, for the most part, of Herculean build. As 
she grows older, she chooses them younger and 
younger. Of the two brothers Zoubof, one was 
twenty-two and the other eighteen at the time 
when she was first attracted by them. We know 
the age of Lanskoi, and the circumstances of his 
premature end. 

What was the actual number of favourites, 
from the day of Catherine's accession to the day 
of her death ? It is not easy to say with absolute 
precision. Only ten officially occupied the post, 
with all the privileges and responsibilities of the 
post: Gregory Orlof, from 1762 to 1772; Vas- 
siltchikof, from 1772 to 1774; Patiomkine, from 
1774 to 1776; Zavadofski, from 1776 to 1777; 
Zovitch, from 1777 to 1778; Korssakof, from 
1778 to 1780; Lanskoi, from 1780 to 1784; 
Iermolof, from 1784 to 1785; Mamonof, from 
1785 to 1789; Zoubof, from 1789 to 1796. But 
at the time when Korssakof was in favour, a 
crisis came about which called forth several 
aspirants, and brought at least one of them, 
Strahof, very much into the good graces of the 
sovereign. Strahof never occupied the special 
apartments of the favourite ; it is almost certain, 
however, that he took the place, for a short time, 
of the official favourite. Very likely something 
similar happened on various occasions. On visit- 
ing the Winter Palace, shortly before the death 
of Catherine, a traveller was particularly struck 



434 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



by the decoration of two little rooms close to 
the Empress's bedroom : the walls of one of 
these rooms were completely covered with minia- 
tures of great price, set in gold, and representing 
different lascivious scenes ; the other room was 
similarly decorated, but the miniatures were por- 
traits, portraits of men whom Catherine had 
known or loved. 

Among these men, some showed themselves 
^/ singularly ungrateful for the excess of favours 
which Catherine heaped indiscriminately upon 
them all. She herself behaved well to every one 
of them, and not one, even of those who were 
unfaithful to her, had to suffer the weight of her 
wrath and vengeance. For she was betrayed 
and abandoned like the most vulgar of mistresses : 
all her power, all her fascination, and the im- 
mensity of the price set on her favour, could not 
shield her from the mishaps that have tortured the 
hearts of empresses and of grisettes alike since 
the beginning of the world. In 1780 she sur- 
prises Korssakof in the arms of the Countess 
Bruce. In 1789 it is Mamonof who gives her up 
to marry a freiline. Taking everything into con- 
sideration, it is she who was the least changeable. 
Referring to the departure of Mamonof, simply 
sent to Moscow with his lady, with whom he is 
soon in disagreement, the Comte de Segur wrote 
in a despatch to the Comte de Montmorin— 

' One can shut one's eyes indulgently on the 
errors of a woman who is a great man, when she 
shows, even in her weaknesses, such mastery 
over herself, such mercy, and such magnanimity. 
It is rarely that one finds in union absolute 
power, jealousy, and moderation, and such a 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 



435 



character could only be condemned by a man 
without a heart, or a prince without a weakness.' 

Perhaps the Comte de Segur was too in- 
dulgent. Perhaps, too, Saint- Beuve was not 
sufficiently so, when he observed that Catherine's 
way of treating her lovers, when she got tired of 
them, so different from that of Elizabeth of 
England and Christina of Sweden, really told 
against her. That she should load them with 
gifts, instead of having them assassinated, ■ is too 
much, betrays too openly the scorn that she has 
of men and of nations.' There is, at all events, 
an error of fact in this severe judgment : Catherine 
was not tired of either Korssakof or Mamonof 
when she learned how they had deceived her. 
She clung to them still, to the latter especially, 
and her pride was not alone in suffering from 
the disgrace that they inflicted upon her. Her 
weaknesses were often, too often, those of a 
woman who takes her pleasure where she finds 
it ; but the English statesman who wrote 4 she 
was a stranger to love,' understood very little, to 
our mind, of the psychology of a woman. 



in 

Before making up her mind to abandon Gregory 
Orlof, Catherine endured from him what few 
women would have endured. In 1765, seven 
years before the rupture, Berenger writes from 
St. Petersburg to the Due de Praslin : — 

'This Russian openly violates the laws of 
love in regard to the Empress. He has mis- 
tresses in town, who, far from calling down the 
indignation of the sovereign through their com- 



436 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

plaisance to Orlof, seem, on the contrary, to gain 
her favour by it. The senator, Mouravief, who 
had found his wife with him, attempted to make 
a sensation by demanding a separation : the 
Empress appeased him by giving him some land 
in Livonia.' 

But at last things get to such a pitch that 
Catherine can endure it no longer, and she 
profits by the absence of the favourite to break 
her chain. At the moment when Orlof, travelling 
post, is coming to reclaim his rights, he is stopped 
by command a few versts from St. Petersburg, 
and banished to his estates. But he will not 
admit, that he is beaten ; now suppliant, now 
menacing, he begs to be allowed to see the 
sovereign again, if only for a moment. She has 
only to say the word to be rid for ever of his 
importunities : Patiomkine is already at hand, and 
he would willingly make away with all the Orlofs 
at once. But this word is never said. She 
parleys, comes to an agreement, and finally sends 
to the lover, — how lightly punished for a part 
that might justify quite other measures ! — a plan 
of agreement which is a very poem of supreme 
tenderness of heart ; the past forgotten, an appeal 
to the reason of the guilty one that painful 
mutual explanations may be spared, the necessity 
of separation for a time, indicated how mildly, 
almost imploringly — nothing is wanting. He is 
to take leave of absence, to settle at Moscow, or 
on his estates, or elsewhere, if he will. His 
allowance of 1 50,000 roubles a year will be con- 
tinued, and he will receive 100,000 roubles in 
addition, to furnish a house. Meanwhile he 
may make use of any of the Empress's houses 



PRIVATE LIFE-FAVOURITISM 437 

near Moscow, use the court equipages as before, 
and keep the servants in the imperial livery. 
Catherine remembers that she has promised him 
4000 peasants for the victory of Tchesme, in 
which it happens he took no part ; she adds 6000 
more, whom he can pick out as he likes, in any 
of the domains of the crown. And as if she were 
afraid of not doing enough for him, she multiplies 
the proofs of her munificence : now a silver 
service, and then another ' for ordinary use/ and 
then a house at the Troitskaia Pristagne, furni- 
ture, and everything that is found in the apart- 
ments that had belonged to the favourite in the 
imperial palace, the value of which escapes her 
reckoning. In return, Catherine exacts only a 
year's absence. At the end of a year the ex- 
favourite will be better able to realise the situa- 
tion. As for Catherine, ' she will never forget all 
that she owes to the family of Gregory Orlof, nor 
the talents with which he is personally endowed, 
and how useful they may be to the nation.' She 
desires only 'a mutual repose, which she will do 
her best to preserve.' 

It may be that in this way of accommodating 
things there is a little fear of what might be the 
result of hostility on the part of a family to which 
she herself has given such power in her empire } 
but is there not also a genuine tenderness? 
Eleven years later, on hearing of the ex-favourite's 
death, Catherine wrote — 

' The loss of Prince Orlof put me into a fever, 
with such delirium during the night, that I had 
to be bled/ 

It is in June 1783 that she hears the fatal 
news, and two months after, on her way to 



438 



CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 



Frederikshamn to meet the King of Sweden, 
she stipulates beforehand that he will not speak 
to her of this catastrophe, which still moves her 
to the very depths of her being. She is the 
first to speak of it, with an effort to conceal the 
agitation which so distant a past never fails to 
awaken in her mind. Nevertheless, she has 
found several successors to the lover whom she 
had replaced even before his death. Is it a mere 
infatuation, as Grimm at first supposes, which, in 
1778, throws her into the arms of Korssakof? 

'Infatuated? infatuated?' she replies to her 
confidant. ' Do you not know that this term is 
out of place in speaking of Pyrrhus, King of 
Epirus' (the name she gives to the new favourite), 
'a peril to painters, a despair to sculptors ? It is 
the admiration, sir, it is the enthusiasm, that the 
masterpieces of nature inspire ! Things of beauty 
fall and are dashed to pieces like idols before the 
ark of the Lord, before the character of this 
mighty man. Never does Pyrrhus make a move- 
ment which is not either noble or graceful. He 
is radiant as the sun, he radiates light. All that 
is not effeminate, but male, all that one would 
have it : in a word, it is Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. 
It is all in harmony ; nothing is out of place : it 
is the effect of a mingling of the priceless gifts 
of nature; art is not absent, but artifice is a 
thousand leagues away/ 

We may admit that the sentiment which in- 
spires this language in her is neither very deep 
nor very delicate. And indeed Korssakof is a 
mere hector. But take another actor in this 
drama of passion, Patiomkine, the man of genius, 
and read what follows. It is a letter from the 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 



439 



In Catherines 

handwriting — 

* The sooner the better. 
Do not be concerned. 



favourite, written after a lover's quarrel of a few 
days' duration. Catherine replies in the margin, 
point by point. A sort of treaty of eternal peace 
and love is thus signed and sealed by the re- 
conciled lovers : — - 

/>/ Patiomkine's 
handzvriting — 
' Permit me, dear love, to 
tell you how I think our 
quarrel will end. Do not 
be surprised that I am 
concerned in regard to our 
love. Besides the number- 
less favours you have 
showered upon me, you 
have also given me a place 
in your heart. I would be 
there alone, and above all 
who have gone before, for 
none has loved you as I 
love you. And as I am 
the work of your hands, I 
would find rest in you also ; 
I would have you delight 
in doing me kindness; I 
would have you toil for 
my happiness, and find in 
it a solace from the serious 
tasks that are laid upon 
you by your high position. 
Amen.' 



Hand washes hand. 
Sure and firm. 

He is and will be. 
I see and believe it. 
I rejoice at it. 
That is my greatest joy. 

That will come of itself. 

Let calm return to your 
mind, and your feelings 
have free course ; they are 
loving, and will find the 
best way themselves. End 
of the quarrel. Amen.' 

This is no commonplace exchange of vows, 
and the two beings who, placed at the summit of 
human greatness, speak of their love in these 
terms are no vulgar debauchees. All the dreamy, 
troubled, and imperious disposition of Patiomkine 
manifests itself in these lines, as does the tempera- 
ment, at once practical and exalted, of Catherine. 



44-0 CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 

It is by her judgment that the sovereign generally 
rules the favourite, it is by his ardour that he 
often carries her away, A great part of their 
correspondence has been published. There never 
was such a correspondence between two persons 
so linked by a common destiny. The turns of 
phrase generally employed by Catherine, especially 
during the early years of their connection, could 
not be paralleled, perhaps, in their excessive 
familiarity, in the correspondence of no matter 
what jeune galante of the time. We will not 
dwell on, 1 I embrace you a thousand times, my 
friend,' ' Forgive me if I am troubling you, my 
heart,' ' Do you see, my soul ? ' little as one 
expects to find these tender expressions from the 
hand of an Empress. But here is a note which 
ends, ' Good-bye, my bow-wow.' ' Good-bye, my 
gold pheasant,' we read elsewhere. Or again, 
' Good-bye, papa.' There are frequent squabbles : 
Patiomkine has a troublesome disposition, and is 
sulky or furious at the least excuse. She writes to 
him thus : ' If you are not more amiable to-day 
than you were yesterday, I — I — I — well, I really 
won't eat my dinner.' Is there an allusion, in this 
other note, to the project that this irascible lover 
professed at one time of going into a monastery ? 
We know not. 'A plan/ writes Catherine, 
1 which had been formed four or five months ago, 
with which even N. B., the town and suburbs, 
were acquainted ; a plan for plunging a dagger 
into the breast of his friend, on the part of one 
who loves us the most, who has our happiness 
always at heart ; does such a plan do credit to the 
mind and heart of him who has conceived it and 
would put it into execution ? ' 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 441 

The favourite, as one may imagine, is him- 
self not behindhand in tender flowers of speech. 
Only, and it is a curious trait of this astonishing 
idyl, in all the abandonment of his amorous 
warmth, he never for a single instant forgets the 
distance between them. His turns of phrase, often 
more passionate and intense, always preserve a 
certain solemnity, never follow those of Catherine 
in their rather trivial freedom. ' If my prayer is 
heard, God will prolong your days to the utmost 
limit, O thou merciful mother!' That is his 
most customary style. He never, as a rule, uses 
the tutoiement except in this form of invocation, in 
which he seems to address her, the work of whose 
hands he feels himself to be, as he would address 
God. We have other fragments of love-letters 
of Patiomkine, not addressed to Catherine, in 
which he reveals himself as an accomplished 
virtuoso, mingling Oriental fantasy with the 
reverie of the North, and the delicacy of the most 
exquisite models that the West has furnished. 

' O my life, O sister soul of mine, how can 
words tell thee of all my love ? Come, O my 
mistress (soudarka mam), hearken, O my friend, 
my joy, my treasure without price, gift un- 
paralleled that God has given me ! . . . Darling 
\matouchka goloubouchka), give me the joy of 
seeing thee, the delight of rejoicing in thy heart. 
. . . I kiss with all my love thy pretty little hands 
and thy pretty little feet.' 

It is not to Catherine that Patiomkine 

writes that. Matouchka she is, indeed, but 

at the same time, and always, gossoudarinia 

(sovereign), before whom one bows with his 

forehead in the dust, even when speaking of 
29 



442 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

love ; never goloubouckka (darling) nor soitdarka 
(mistress). 

Called to the post of favourite in 1774, 
Patiomkine makes way, two years later, for 
Zavadofski. The lover gives place, but the friend 
remains ; and the engagement entered into at the 
beginning is not broken as yet. It will scarcely 
be so, even when, just before the death of the 
Prince of Taurida, Zoubof, installing himself as 
master in the palace as well as the heart of the 
sovereign, leaves no room for one who had 
formerly ruled alone. Till that time there is 
scarcely a difference to be traced in Catherine's 
manner towards the - brilliant adventurer, whom 
she allows to rule over her court, command 
her armies, govern her empire, though she has 
already broken off her more tender relations with 
him ; and she accepts from him new lovers, while 
showering upon him not only riches and honours, 
but the most unmistakable signs of an unbroken 
affection. 

' Good-bye, my friend ; take care of yourself ; 
I embrace you with all my heart. Sacha sends 
greetings.' 

This is dated June 29, 1789, and Sacha is 
Mamonof, the reigning favourite, and the creature 
of Patiomkine. 

* Sachenka greets you and loves you as his 
own soul,' we read in another letter, dated May 
5, 1784 ; * he often speaks of you.' 

In September 1777, Patiomkine receives from 
the sovereign a present of 150,000 roubles. In 
1779 he receives an advance of 750,000 roubles as 
his annual pension of 75,000. In 1783 Catherine 
pays to his account 100,000 roubles to hasten on 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 



443 



the erection of a palace that he is building, which 
she will buy from him for several millions, and 
of which she will make him a present immediately 
after. He is Field- Marshal, he is Prime Minister, 
he is Prince, he has all the distinctions, all the 
posts, all the honours, all the powers, that there 
are to be bestowed. At the time of the annexa- 
tion of the Crimea, during the second Turkish 
war, he acts as master, without guidance and 
without control. He does as he pleases, follows 
his own devices, and Catherine is like a little 
girl who bows before the decree of a superior 
genius. He leaves her without news for months 
together ; he does not even trouble to reply to 
her letters. Then she complains, but timidly, 
almost humbly : — 

' I have been between life and death all the 
time that I have had no news of you. . . . For 
God's sake and for mine, take more care of 
yourself than you have done in the past. I 
am afraid of nothing, except that you may be ill. 
. . . At this moment, my dear friend, you are 
no longer a private person who lives as he likes 
and does as he pleases : you belong to the state, 
to me.' 

Tender appellations, that of 4 papa' among 
others, find their place once more in the former 
lover's letters. The Empress is herself again in the 
frequent moments of discouragement into which 
the conqueror of the Crimea is always thrown 
by a momentary reverse. In 1787 an attack 
of the Turks on Kinburn makes him think of 
resigning his command. Catherine will not hear 
of it. 

c Strengthen your mind and soul against all 



444 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

that may befall, and be assured that you will 
overcome everything with a little patience, but 
it is a weakness indeed to wish to quit your post 
and hide yourself away/ 

A few weeks later a storm destroyed part 
of the fleet brought together by Patiomkine at 
Sebastopol. This time he would not only 
abandon the army, but evacuate the Crimea. 

' What is it you say ? ' writes Catherine. ■ No 
doubt you thought so at the first moment, fancy- 
ing that all the fleet had perished, but what 
would become of the rest of this fleet after the 
evacuation ? And how can, you begin a campaign 
by the evacuation of a province which is not even 
threatened? It would be better to attack Otcha- 
kof or Bender, thus substituting the offensive 
for the defensive attitude, which you yourself say 
is less politic. Besides, it is not only against us 
that the wind has blown, I imagine ! Courage ! 
courage ! I write all this to you as to my best 
friend, my pupil and scholar, who at times shows 
more resolution than I, but at this moment I have 
more courage than you, because you are ill and 
I am well. ... I think you are as impatient 
as a child of five, whilst the affairs under your 
charge at this moment demand an imperturbable 
patience.' 

She adds that he may return for a time to 
St. Petersburg. Is he afraid that some one will 
play him an ill turn during his absence ? ' Neither 
time, nor distance, nor any one in the world will 
ever change my way of thinking in regard to 
you, nor the feelings I have for you.' 

This freedom of action that Catherine allows 
to the man in whom she has placed her confi- 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 445 

dence, this way of closing her eyes on his pro- 
ceedings, in order to pay him the greater com- 
pliment, is only the application of a system that 
we know already. Occasions are not wanting, 
however, on which the will of the Empress and 
her personal intervention are exercised in a direct 
and effectual manner. There are then frequent 
disagreements between the two, and neither 
friendship nor love hinder Catherine from insist- 
ing on her authority being obeyed. The ill- 
temper of the favourite comes out plainly enough : 
he is now sharp, now sulky : ' I tell you,' he 
writes, ' what is for your interest ; after that, do 
as you please.' ' You may get angry if you like,' 
replies Catherine, ' but you must admit that I am 
right' The causes of disagreement are some- 
times of a rather delicate nature. An inspector 
of the troops has been nominated by Patiom- 
kine. Catherine opposes the choice, which 
she conceives to have been made for a parti- 
cular reason. This is how she reasons the matter 
out : — 

' Allow me to tell you that the miserable face 
of his wife is not worth the trouble you will have 
with such a man. Nor have you any chance 
there, for madame is charming, but there is 
nothing to be gained by paying court to her. 
That is a well-known fact, and an immense 
family watches over her reputation. My friend, 
I am accustomed to tell you the truth. You do 
the same with me when there is occasion for it. 
Oblige me in this instance by choosing some one 
more suitable for the post, one who knows the 
work, so that the approval of the public and of 
the army may crown your choice and my nomina- 



446 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

tion. I like to give you pleasure, and I do not 
like to refuse you anything, but I should like that 
in a post of that sort, every one might say, what 
a good choice, and not, what a wretched choice, 
of a man who does not know what he has to do. 
Make peace, after which you can come here and 
amuse yourself as much as you like.' 

Catherine forgot to add that meanwhile she 
was amusing herself on her side, and that this 
time she had not consulted her 'friend' on the 
nature of the new amusement that she had found 
for herself. Zoubof appeared on the horizon 
and proclaimed himself a formidable rival in 
the conquest of the imperial favour, and even of 
the part that . friendship had left to his pre- 
decessor. Tied to the other extremity of the 
empire, Patiomkine bounded with rage ; he de- 
clared that he would soon return to St. Peters- 
burg, ' to have a tooth taken out ' {zoud means 
tooth in Russian) which troubled him. He did 
not succeed in his attempt. He came back only 
to witness the definite triumph of the enemy. 
He returned to the South, chafing at his fate ; 
he was struck to the heart, and soon death came 
to spare him the last humiliations of disgrace. 
Catherine, nevertheless, had taken all the trouble 
in the world to make him look favourably upon 
her new choice, and the letters in which she 
gives voice to this anxiety are not the least 
curious of the collection from which we have 
already made many extracts. Compliments, kind 
attentions, delicate flatteries, even unexpected 
outbursts of tenderness, follow one another, 
coming to the friend already sacrificed, on the 
part of the victorious lover, of 'the child,' the 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 447 



1 little blacky,' as she delights in calling the new- 
favourite, with the caressing ways that age has 
not taken from her. 1 The child,' she writes, 
4 thinks you are cleverer and more amusing and 
more amiable than all those about you ; but keep 
this quiet, for he does not know that I know 
that.' 

But Patiomkine is not to be wheedled. He 
sees his prestige escaping him, he feels that 
this time the place is taken altogether, and not 
only the corner of the imperial palace, near her 
Majesty's private rooms, which he had let go so 
lightly, but that other sanctuary as well, which 
the vows of bygone days had led him to hope 
would retain a place for him for ever. That too 
he was going to lose ! 

Once already he had had a serious cause for 
anxiety. Among his rivals there had been one, 
before Zoubof, whom Catherine seemed to have 
loved as she never loved before or after. It 
seems to have been the fate of this extraordinary 
woman to exhaust, in all their diversity, the 
whole range of sentiments and sensations, and 
the entire order of the phenomena of passion. 
The love that she experienced for Lanskoi was 
utterly different from that which she had for 
Patiomkine, or for any of those who filled her 
life, so rich in varied impressions. But Lanskoi 
was not ambitious, and it was not given to Cathe- 
rine to keep him long. On June 19, 1784, the 
young man who for the last four years had made 
the joy of her existence, in whom all her thoughts, 
all her affections, and all her desires were con- 
centrated, the most petted, the most caressed, the 
most feted of favourites, was attacked by a 



448 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



mysterious disease. The German physician 
Weikard was hastily summoned from St. Peters- 
burg to Tzarskoie-Sielo. He was a savant of 
the pure Teutonic breed, little used to delicate 
discretion in his dealings. Sitting on the patient's 
bed, Catherine anxiously questioned him. 

' What is it ? ' she asked. 

' A bad fever, Madame, and he will die of it/ 

He insisted that the Empress should leave the 
patient, judging the malady to be contagious. 
So far as we can conjecture, it was a quinsy. 
Catherine never hesitated an instant between the 
counsels of prudence and those more imperious 
ones of her heart. She was soon taken with 
a troublesome uneasiness of the throat. She 
braved it all. Ten days later Lanskoi expired 
in her arms. He was only twenty-six. Hear 
the lament of the lover from whom the loved 
one has been taken by death : — 

' When I began this letter, I was in hope and 
joy, and my thoughts came so swiftly that I knew 
not what became of them. It is so no more : I 
am plunged into the depths of sorrow, and my 
happiness has fled : I thought I should have died 
of the irreparable loss that I have just had, a 
w^eek ago, of my best friend. I had hoped that 
he would be the support of my old age : he was 
attentive, he learnt much, he had acquired all my 
tastes. He was a young man whom I was 
bringing up, who was grateful, kind, and good, 
who shared my sorrows when I had them, and 
rejoiced. in my joys. In a word, I have the mis- 
fortune to have to tell you, with tears, that 
General Lanskoi is no more, . . . and my room, 
so pleasant before, has become an empty den, in 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 449 

which I can just drag myself about like a shadow. 
Something went wrong with my throat the day 
before his death, and I have a raging fever ; 
nevertheless, since yesterday, I have got up 
from bed, but so feeble and sorrowful that at 
the present hour I cannot look on a human face 
without my voice being choked with tears. I 
cannot sleep or eat ; reading wearies me, and 
writing is too much for me. I know not what 
will become of me ; but I know that never in 
my life have I been so unhappy as since my 
kind, my best friend has quitted me. I have 
opened my drawer, I have found this sheet that 
I have begun, I have written these lines, but I 
can no more.' 

This is on July 2, 1784. Only after two 
months does Catherine resume her correspond- 
ence with Grimm. 

' 1 confess to you that all that time I was 
incapable of writing to you, because I knew that 
it would make us both suffer. A week after I 
had written to you my letter of July, Count 
Fedor Orlof and Prince Potemkin came to me. 
Up to then I could not endure to see any one; 
these took me just in the right way : they began 
to howl with me, and then I felt at my ease with 
them ; but it took a long time to come to it, and 
thanks to my sensibility, I had become insensible 
to everything but this one sorrow ; and this. 
seemed to increase and take fresh hold at every 
step, at every word. Do not think, however, that 
despite the horror of the situation, I neglected 
the least thing which required my attention. In 
the most awful moments I was called upon to 
give orders, and I gave them, in an orderly and 



45o CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

sane manner : which particularly struck General 
Saltykof. More than two months passed without 
any respite ; at last some calmer hours have 
come, and now calmer days. The weather having 
become wet, the rooms at Tsarsko-Selo have 
had to be heated. Mine have been heated with 
such violence that on the evening of the 5th 
September, not knowing where to go, I called 
out my coach, and came straight here without 
any one's knowing it ; I have put up at the Her- 
mitage, and yesterday, for the first time, I went 
to mass, and consequently, for the first time also, 
I saw everybody and was seen by everybody ; 
but, in truth, it was such an effort that on getting 
back to my room I was so overcome that any one 
but I would have fainted. ... I ought to re-read 
your three last letters, but I really cannot. ... I 
have become a most sad creature, and speak 
only in monosyllables. ... Everything distresses 
me . . . and I never liked to be an object of 
pity.' 

An English orator, Lord Camelford, has said 
that Catherine honoured the throne by her vices, 
while the King of England (George III.) dis- 
honoured it by his virtues. The expression is 
somewhat strong; but it may be admitted that 
vices capable of manifesting themselves in so 
touching a form deserve something other than 
absolute condemnation. 

IV 

Favouritism, as practised by Catherine, was 
not without its serious inconveniences. On 
December 1, 1772, the French minister at St. 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 451 

Petersburg, Durand, writes to the Due d'Aiguillon 
that, according to reports coming from the palace, 
* the Empress is so singularly occupied with the 
affair of M. Orlof, that for nearly two months she 
has attended to nothing else, she reads nothing, 
and scarcely ever goes out.' Two months after, 
the crisis is not yet over. 1 This woman does 
nothing,' says one of the courtiers to Durand ; ' so 
long as the Orlof faction is in power, there is 
nothing to be done.' Now these crises are 
frequent. In February 1780 the English am- 
bassador Harris, coming to Prince Patiomkine 
to question him in reference to an important 
memorandum which has been in the Empress's 
hands for some time, is told that he has come at 
a wrong time : Lanskoi is ill, and the dread of 
his death so paralyses the Empress that she is 
unable to fix her attention on anything. All her 
thoughts of ambition and of glory are forgotten ; 
all care for her own interest or her own dignity 
leaves her ; she is completely absorbed in this 
one anxiety. And Prince Patiomkine expresses 
his fear lest Count Panine should profit by the 
occasion to bring his ideas into play, and give a 
new direction to the foreign policy. Three years 
later, it is an illness of the Prince himself that 
throws the Sovereign into a state of such dis- 
tress, that the Marquis de Verac, on the point 
of leaving St. Petersburg, cannot obtain his fare- 
well audience. Those about the Empress, seeing 
her eyes red with the tears that she cannot 
restrain, beg her not to appear in public. The 
audience is put off. 

When favouritism does not bring affairs to 
a standstill, it sometimes puts their guidance 



452 CATHERINE IL OF RUSSIA 

into hands as little suitable as possible to manage 
the helm, those of Mamonof or Zoubof, for 
example. And it is not merely the hasty advance- 
ment of the favourites themselves, becoming 
generals, marshals, ministers, from one day to 
another : the high personages thus created with a 
wave of the wand have in turn their dependants. 
They have also their enemies whom they seek to 
put in the background — as Patiomkine did with 
the illustrious Roumiantsof, thus depriving the 
empire of its finest soldier. Sometimes they 
push forward an ambitious man in order to get rid 
of a rival. In 1787 Mamonof is alarmed by the 
appearance at court of a young Prince Kotchou- 
bey : he arranges to have him sent as ambassador 
to Constantinople ! The favourite gone, the 
consequences of his elevation still last. After 
the death of Patiomkine, his secretary, Popof, 
replaces him as head of the government of 
Iekatierinoslaf. He settles everything off-hand 
by the magic formula : ' Such was the will of the 
late Prince.' He inherits the secret of this will, 
and remains the instrument of his ' maker/ as he 
calls the deceased. Now, Count Rastoptchine, 
a good judge, declares that this man, though, 
during the lifetime of Patiomkine, he had 
governed the whole empire in his name for ten 
years, had no aptitude for affairs. Besides, he had 
other engagements. Rastoptchine never noticed 
in him more than one quality : the strength of 
his physical constitution, which enabled him 
regularly to pass his days and nights in gambling. 
Meanwhile, he is appointed general, chevalier of 
three orders, and incumbent of posts which bring 
him in 50,000 roubles a year. In February 1796 



PRIVATE LIFE-FAVOURITISM 



453 



Rastoptchine writes : ' Never were crimes so 
frequent as they are now. Impunity and 
audacity are pushed to their utmost. Three 
days ago, a certain Kovalinski, who had been 
secretary of the War Commission, and had been 
dismissed by the Empress for pillage and cor- 
ruption, was appointed governor at Riazan, 
because he has a brother blackguard like himself 
who is in favour with Gribolski, Plato Zoubof's 
chancellor. Ribas alone steals 500,000 roubles 
a year.' 

Favouritism is expensive. Castera has made 
out a formidable sum-total on account of ten 
principal heads of affairs, adding a doubtful 
supernumerary, Vysotski. 

Amounts received— 



The five Orlofs, 
Vysotski, . N 
Vassiltchikof, 
Patiomkine, 
Zavadofski, 
Zovitch, 
Korssakof, 
Lanskoi, 
Iermolof, . 
Mamonof, . 
The brothers Zoubof, 
Expenses of the favourites, 



Roubles. 
17,000,000 
300,000 
1,1 10,000 
50,000,000 
1,380,000 
1,420,000 
920,000 
7,26o,000 

55°* 000 
880,000 
3,500,000 
8,500,000 



Total, 92,820,000 



This comes, at the then rate of exchange, to 
more than 400 millions of francs. This is much 
the same as the calculation of the English am- 
bassador Harris. 

From 1762 to 1783 the Orlof family received, 
according to him, 40,000. to 50,000 peasants and .1 7 



454 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



million roubles in money, houses, plate, and jewels. 
Vassiltchikof, in twenty-two months, received 
100,000 roubles in cash, 50,000 in jewels, a fur- 
nished palace with 100,000 roubles, plate worth 
30,000, a pension of 20,000, and 7000 peasants ; 
Patiomkine, in two years, 37,000 peasants, and 
about 9,000,000 roubles in jewels, palaces, pen- 
sion, and plate ; Zavadofski, in eighteen months, 
6000 peasants in Ukraine, 2000 in Poland, 
1800 in Russia, 80,000 roubles'-worth of jewels, 
150,000 roubles in cash, plate worth 30,000, and 
a pension of 10,000; Zovitch, in a year, an 
estate worth 500,000 roubles in Poland, another 
worth 100,000 in Livonia, 500,000 roubles in 
cash, 200,000 in jewels, and a commandership in 
Poland, with an income of 12,000 roubles; Kors- 
sakof, in sixteen months, 1 50,000 roubles, and, on 
his leaving, 4000 peasants in Poland, 100,000 
roubles to pay his debt, 100,000 for his equip- 
ment, 20,000 roubles a month to travel abroad. 

These figures need no comment. In July 1778 
the Chevalier de Corberon wrote from St. Peters- 
burg to the Comte de Vergennes — 

* The new favourite Corsak ' (such appears to 
have been the individual's original name) ' has 
just been made chamberlain. He has received 
150,000 roubles, and his fortune, which will not 
last, will be at least brilliant for him and burden- 
some for the state, which has to suffer for it. 
This nuisance, so often repeated, spreads dissatis- 
faction and discontent in the public mind, and 
the result might be dangerous if Catherine II. 
were not more powerful and more farseeing than 
those about her. There are murmurs, but she 
rules through all, and the ascendency of her mind 



PRIVATE LIFE— FAVOURITISM 455 

is her salvation. . . . Lately, in a Russian house, 
some one calculated how much had been spent on 
favouritism during the present reign : the total 
came to 48 million roubles/ 

But it was not merely a question of money. 
Prince Chtcherbatof has excellently characterised 
the demoralising influence of an institution which 
brought into prominence excesses of this kind at 
the highest point of society. The favourites of 
Catherine might well, from the absolute point of 
view, seem only the equivalent of the mistresses 
of Louis XV., but the absolute is out of place 
both in morals and in politics, the difference of 
the sexes will probably always make, in this con- 
nection, an enormous difference in the relative 
bearing of the same facts, and if Marie- Antoinette 
found painful surprises awaiting her at the court 
of her father-in-law, these were probably nothing 
to the impression made on the second wife of 
Paul, Maria Fedorovna, when her residence at 
St. Petersburg had brought her in contact with the 
official scandal of the imperial palace. Besides, 
the mistresses of Louis XV. were not supposed, 
in France, to transact the business of royalty. 

There was certainly, in this strange woman, a 
colossal disregard of her situation in regard to 
the eternal laws of womanhood. For it must 
be observed that there was in her in no sense 
an affectation of cynicism, nor even an oblitera- 
tion of the moral sense, nor even depravation of 
mind. Favouritism with all its consequences 
once excepted, Catherine is severe in regard to 
moral questions, and very susceptible in regard 
to outward decency. She values chastity, and 
at times is even prudish. One day, on the way 



456 



CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 



to Kief, she requests the Comte de Segur, who 
is in her carriage, to repeat some verses. He 
recites a piece, 4 a little free and gay,' he tells us, 
4 but nevertheless decent enough to have been 
well received at Paris by the Due de Nivernais, 
the Prince de Beauveau, and ladies as virtuous 
as they are amiable.' Catherine at once frowns, 
stops him midway by a question on quite an- 
other subject, and turns off the conversation. 
In 1788, the Admiral Paul Jones, whom she 
has summoned to her service from England, is 
accused of having taken liberties with a girl 
belonging to the court. He is immediately 
dismissed, notwithstanding the dearth of men 
capable of taking the command. For a similar 
reason the English ambassador Macartney is 
obliged to leave his post. In 1790, chatting 
with her secretary over the events that have 
been taking place in France, Catherine inveighs 
against the actresses, whom she accuses of hav- 
ing depraved the morals of the nation. 4 What 
has ruined the country,' she declares, 4 is that 
the people fall into vice and drunkenness. The 
comic opera has corrupted the whole nation.' * 

She is conscious of not having taken to drink 
herself, and of having done nothing to corrupt 
the morals of her country. But she thinks it 
quite natural to write to Patiomkine that his 
successor Mamonof — Sachenka, as she calls him 
— 4 loves him and looks upon him as a father/ 
And she is in nowise embarrassed in asking her 
son and daughter-in-law for news of the King 
Poniatowski, whom they have seen in passing 
through Warsaw. 1 1 think,' she writes, 4 that 
his Polish Majesty would have some difficulty 



PRIVATE LIFE-FAVOURITISM 457 

in remembering my face as it was twenty-five 
years ago by the portraits you showed him/ 

' One could never venture/ writes the Prince 
de Ligne in his portrait of the sovereign, 'to 
speak ill of Peter I. nor of Louis XVI. before 
the Empress, nor the least thing in regard to 
religion or morals. Scarcely could one venture 
on anything in the least risky, however glossed 
over; at which, however, she would laugh 
quietly. She never permitted trifling, either of 
this kind or in reference to any one/ 

A ukase instructing keepers of public baths to 
have separate compartments for the two sexes, 
and not to allow any men in the women's quar- 
ter, except those required for attendance, and 
doctors, bears the signature of Catherine. An 
odd exception is made in favour of painters, 
who would study their art in the feminine com- 
partments. 

The sudden death of Catherine, coming as it 
did, was perhaps another expiation. For a long 
time past her excesses had been thought to 
be telling on her robust health. In a despatch 
of May, 1774, Durand, the French chargd- 
a" affaires, speaking of the anxiety of the favour- 
ite on account of the Empress's health, wrote — 

1 He is well aware of what few people know, 
that the Empress had a fainting-fit a day or two 
ago, lasting more than half an hour, just as she 
was about to take a cold bath ; that her most 
trusty servants have noticed curious twitches 
and movements that she has been subject to for 
some time ; that by the use of cold baths and of 
tobacco she has moments of absence of mind and 
ideas quite opposed to her natural ones. All 
30 



458 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA 

that I infer at present from these symptoms is 
that she is affected with hysteria/ 

In 1774 these conjectures were premature. 
Twenty years later Catherine justified them. 

We ask the pardon of our readers for having 
raised the veil cast by time and oblivion over 
these details. For all we have done we have had 
but one reason, and we desire but one excuse — 
the sincerity that, in default of other merit, we 
have brought to our task, a task whose difficulties 
and dangers we have by no means ignored, but 
one which has appealed to us in spite of all, as it 
has interested, we hope, others as well, by reason 
of the variety, the complexity, and the original- 
ity, perhaps unique, of facts which are purely a 
matter of history, and which yet might challenge 
the best attempts of the most fertile imagina- 
tion. 



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*HE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF 



the Reigning Families. By " Politikos." With many Por- 
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" A remarkably able book. ... A great deal of the inner history of Europe is to be 
found in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable portraits." — The Athenceum. 

" Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns. . . . The anony- 
mous author seems to have sources of information that are not open to the foieign 
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Y CANADIAN JOURNAL, i872-':8. By Lady 



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The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of 




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OUISA MUHLBACH'S HISTORICAL 



' NOVELS. New edition, 1 8 vols. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, 
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the events and personages of great historical epochs. 

The titles are as follows : 

Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia. 
The Empress Josephine. 
Napoleon and Blucher. 
Queen Hortense. 
Marie Antoinette and her Son. 
Prince Eugene and his Times. 
The Daughter of an Empress. 
Joseph II and his Court. 
Frederick the Great and his Court. 
Frederick the Great and his Family. 
Berlin and Sans-Souci. 
Goethe and Schiller. 

The Merchant of Berlin, and Maria Theresa and 

her Fireman. 
Louisa of Prussia and her Times. 
Old Fritz and the New Era. 
Andreas Hofer. 

Mohammed Ali and his House. 
Henry VIII and Catherine Parr. 



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A N ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS. Notes and Recol- 
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This work gives an intimate and most entertaining series of pictures of 
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contains personal reminiscences of the old Latin Quarter, the Revolution of 
1848, the coup (Vitat, society, art, and letters during the Second Empire, the 
siege of Paris, and the reign of the Commune. The author enjoyed the 
acquaintance of most of the celebrities of this time ; and he describes Balzac, 
Alfred de Musset, Sue, the elder Dumas, Taglioni, Flaubert, Auber, Felicien 
David, Delacroix, Horace Vernet, Decamps, Guizot, Thiers, and many 
others, whose appearance in these pages is the occasion for fresh and inter- 
esting anecdotes. This work may well be described as a volume of inner 
history written from an exceptionally favorable point of view. 

"... All questions of casuistry aside, the taste of civilized men for personal details 
about each other is unquestionable. . . . For this reason alone, independently of its 
literary merits, ' An Englishman in Paris ' will be read all the world over with intense 
interest. . . . With this opportunity for knowing men, women, and affairs, shrewd 
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borne testimony to the rare interest of the work, have, however, disclosed the author's 
name. They say it is Sir Richard Wallace. ... A man of mark Sir Richard was in 
many other ways. No one ever shared the friendship of great and distinguished men 
and women after his fashion without possessing talents and charm quite out of the com- 
mon order. The reader of these volumes will not marvel more at the unfailing interest 
of each page than at the extraordinary collection of eminent persons whom the author 
all his life knew intimately and met frequently. A list would range from Dumas the 
elder to David the sculptor, from Rachel to Balzac, from Louis Napoleon to Eugene 
Delacroix, from Louis Philippe to the Princess Demidoff, and from Lola Montez to 
that other celebrated woman, Alphonsine Plessis, who was the original of the younger 
Dumas's 'Dame aux Camellias.' He knew these persons as no other Englishman 
could have known them, and he writes about them with a charm that has all the at- 
traction of the most pleasing conversation. The reminiscences were written only a 
few years before his death. . . ." — New York Times. 

"We have rarely happened upon more fascinating volumes than these Recollec- 
tions. . . . One good story leads on to another; one personality brings up reminiscences 
of another, and we are hurried along in a rattle of gayety. . . . We have heard many 
suggestions hazarded as to the anonymous author of these memoirs. There are not 
above three or four Englishmen with whom it would be possible to identify him. We 
doubted still until after the middle of the second volume we came upon two or three 
passages which strike us as being conclusive circumstantial evidence. . . . We shall 
not seek to strip the mask from the anonymous." — London Times. 



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''THE STORY OF WASHINGTON. By Eliza- 
-» beth Eggleston Seelye. Edited by Dr. Edward Eggleston. 
With over 100 Illustrations by Allegra Eggleston. A new vol- 
ume in the "Delights of History" Series, uniform with "The 
Story of Columbus." i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. 
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— New York Observer. 

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" Will be read with interest by young and old. It is told with good taste and ac- 
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which to measure the man, but a just and complete estimate of him. The illustrations 
are so excellent as to double the value of the book as it would be without them." — 
Chicago Times. 

^pHE STORY OF COLUMBUS. By Elizabeth 
J- Eggleston Seelye. Edited by Dr. Edward Eggleston. With 
100 Illustrations by Allegra Eggleston. " Delights of History " 
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" In some respects altogether the best book that the Columbus year has brought 
out." — Rochester Post-Express. 

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than many of the more ambitious works on a similar theme." — New York Journal of 
Commerce. 

" This is no ordinary work. It is pre-eminently a work of the present time and of 
the future as well." — Boston Traveller. 

" Mrs. Seelye's book is pleasing in its general effect, and reveals the results of 
painstaking and conscientious study." — New York Tribune. 

" A very just account is given of Columbus, his failings being neither concealed nor 
magnified, but his real greatness being made plain." — New York Examiner. 

" The illustrations are particularly well chosen and neatly executed, and they add 
to the general excellence of the volume." — New York Times. 



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TKjTEMOIRS. By Charles Godfrey Leland (Hans 
1V1 Breitmann) With Portrait. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

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in many a long day can afford to let go unread." — New York Herald. 

" Mr. Charles G. Leland's ' Memoirs ' may be reckoned among the autobiograph- 
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and his book is a fair reflection of the exceptional character of his life. . . . This vol- 
ume will add to his fame, not lessen it." — G. W. S., in New York Tribune. 

" In a way Mr. Leland's ' Memoirs ' carry with them the same joy as Sir Richard 
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the American war are interesting. If anything were needed to enlarge one's ideas of 
that tremendous struggle, Mr. Leland's stories would do it." —Pail Mall Gazette. 



n^HE STORY OF MY LIFE. By Georg Ebers, 

J- author of " Uarda," " An Egyptian Princess," " A Thorny 
Path," etc. With Portraits. i6mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

"It is written widi a charming frankness that is peculiarly German, and an appre- 
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afford more agreeable reading." — The Critic. 

"To those who know Dr. Ebers chiefly as an Egyptologist, and whose interest lies 
in his imaginative work, the early chapters of this autobiography will prove a source of 
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not only molded his character but were potent in shaping the bent of his mind." — 
Philadelphia Bulletin. 

"One of the most delightful books which Georg Ebers, the German Egyptologist 
and novelist, has written, and this is saying a great deal. ... It is the picture of the 
life of a bright, active, happy boy in a German home of the most worthy sort, and at 
German schools mostly of conspicuous excellence. There is neither undue frankness 
nor superfluous reticence, but the things which one wishes to be told are recorded 
naturally and entertainingly." — The Congregationalist. 



JDERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WERNER 
•L VON SIEMENS. Translated by W. C. Coupland. With 
Portrait. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00. 

" This volume of straightforward reminiscence reflects new credit on its author, 
and deserves a high place among the records of great inventors who have made a name 
and a fortune in ways which have been of immense public benefit." — Literary World. 

" The full account of Siemens's work will be most interesting to the engineer and to 
the man of science; but even the reader who may choose to skip all this will find it 
one of the most charming publications of the year." — The Nation. 

" The general reader need not be deterred from taking up the book by the fear that 
he will have to wade through chapters of long technical terms which he does not under- 
stand. Whether he is describing his simple home life or his scientific career and its 
manifold achievements, Von Siemens writes plainly, unaffectedly, and in a uniformly 
attractive fashion. The whole work is, as the publishers of the translation say with 
truth, 'rich in genial narrative, stirring adventure, and picturesque description,' and 
stamped throughout with the impress of an original mind and a sterling character." — 
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JN THE TRACK OF THE SUN: Readings from 
■* the Diary of a Globe Trotter. By Frederick Diodati 
Thompson. Profusely illustrated with Engravings from Pho- 
tographs and Drawings by Harry Fenn. Large 8vo. Cloth, gilt, 
$6.00. 

In this magnificently illustrated volume the author describes in an easy, 
entertaining, intelligent manner the tour of the world. Starting from New 
York, he crosses the continent, sails from Vancouver for Japan, where he 
spends some time in studying noteworthy features of that delightful country, 
and then visits China, Singapore, Ceylon, and other places, reserving a con- 
siderable portion of his time for India and Egypt, where he does most ex- 
tensive sight-seeing, and afterward traversing Italy and France and return- 
ing to New York by way of London and Liverpool. Mr. Thompson is an 
instructive and amusing cicerone. The illustrations, comprising full-page 
pictures, vignettes and other text cuts, head and tail pieces, and initials, 
number over two hundred, and present an itinerary of the journey around 
the world, including not only scenery, historic and remarkable buildings, 
and street scenes, but also an abundance of studies from life, which show 
contrasting types of humanity the world over, ranging from our Western 
Indians to Maharajahs of the Orient, and from the beautiful women of 
Japan to Egyptian fellahs. " In the Track of the Sun " gives a bird's-eye 
view of the world's picturesque features. 

JDOEMS OF NATURE. Selections from the 
Works of William Cullen Bryant. Profusely illustrated 
by Paul de Longpre. 8vo. Cloth, gilt, $4.00. 

These verses offer a full expression of the great poet's love of Nature. 
The volume contains over forty poems, the list beginning with the classic 
"To a Waterfowl," and closing with "Our Fellow-Worshipers." The 
chronological arrangement enables the student of Bryant to follow the in- 
fluences of ripening age and enlarged experience upon the poet's attitude 
toward Nature. M. Longpre, an exact as well as a loving student of the 
fields and forests, has gathered a rich harvest of the American flora, and his 
thoroughly artistic and beautiful studies, comprising nearly one hundred 
subjects, have the value of truthful records as well as high aesthetic worth. 

piCCIOLA. By X. B. Saintine. With 130 Illustra- 
X tions by J. F. Gueldry. 8vo. Cloth, gilt, $1.50. 

" Picciola : The Prisoner of Fenestrella, or Captivity Captive," is one of 
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ing story, and the publishers believe that this edition will take a permanent 
place as the standard illustrated " Picciola." It is uniform with the illus- 
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S HE COUNTRY SCHOOL IN NEW ENG- 



Photographs and Drawings made by the Author. Square 8vo. 

Cloth, gilt edges, $2.50. 
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they are not stupid; they are usually the result of deficient logic." — Boston Beacon. 

" A charmingly written account of the rural schools in this section of the country. 
It speaks of the old-fashioned school days of the early quarter of this century, of the 
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" The readers who turn the leaves of this handsome book will unite in saying the 
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"One of the finest and most fitting of all the Christmas books likely to appear." — 
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*HE BRONTES IN IRELAND. By Dr. William 



-* Wright. With Portraits and numerous Illustrations. i2mo. 
Cloth, $1.50. 

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interesting as a romance. It has a number of valuable illustrations, plans, etc., and 
will be of the -most intense fascination to all who have read and thrilled over 'Jane 
Eyre' and 'Shirley,' or puzzled over the mystery of the wild and erratic Branwell." — 
Boston Beacon. 

" Dr. Wright has faithfully traced the current of Bronte life and thought back to 
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— Boston Traveller. 

"A new and thrilling chapter in the history of the Bronte sisters." — Boston Ad- 
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By Clifton Johnson. With 60 Illustrations from 



« 




D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



JDICCIOLA. By X. B. Saintine. With 130 Illus- 
J~ trations by J. F. Gueldry. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, uniform with 
" The Story of Colette " and " An Attic Philosopher in Paris," 
$1.50. 

"Saintine's ' Picciola,' the pathetic tale of the prisoner who raised a flower 
between the cracks of the flagging of his dungeon, has passed definitely into the list of 
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" ' Picciola ' is an exquisite thing, and deserves such a setting as is here given it." 
— Hartford Courant. 

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Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" Most beautiful in its clear type, cream-laid paper, many attractive illustrations, 
and holiday binding." — New York Observer. 

/JN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS; or, A 
Peep at the World from a Garret. Being the Journal of a 
Happy Man. By Emile Souvestre. With numerous Illus- 
trations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. 

" A suitable holiday gift for a friend who appreciates refined literature." — Boston 
Times. 

" It possesses a charming simplicity of style that makes it extremely fascinating, 
while the moral lesson it conveys commends itself to every heart. The work has 
now become a French classic. It is beautifully gotten up and illustrated, and is a 
delight to the eye as well as to the mind and heart." — Chicago Herald. 

" The influence of the book is wholly good. The volume is a particularly hand- 
some one." — Philadelphia Telegraph. 

" It is a classic. It has found an appropriate reliquary. Faithfully translated, 
charmingly illustrated by Jean Claude with full-page pictures, vignettes in the text, 
and head and tail pieces, printed in graceful type on handsome paper, and bound with 
an art worthy of Matthews,, in half-cloth, ornamented on the cover, it is an exemplary 
book, fit to be ' a treasure for aye.' " — New York Times. 

^nHE STOP Y OF COLETTE. A new large-paper 

J- edition. With 36 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50. 

" One of the gems of the season. . . . It is the story of the life of young womanhood 
in France, dramatically told, with the light and shade and coloring of the genuine 
artist, and is utterly free from that which mars too many French novels. In its 
literary finish it is well-nigh perfect, indicating the hand of the master." — Boston 

Traveller. 

" The binding is exquisite." — Rochester Union and Advertiser. 

" A volume as pleasant to the eyes as the story is witching to the imagination." — 

The Independent. 

" One of the handsomest of the books of fiction for the holiday season,"— Philadel- 
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HTHE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD F. BURTON. 

J- By his Wife, Isabel Burton. With numerous Portraits, Illus- 
trations, and Maps, and two colored Plates. In 2 vols. 8vo. 
Cloth, $12.00. 

The career of the late Sir Richard F. Burton, the distinguished traveler, 
and editor of " The Arabian Nights," was perhaps the most adventurous and 
romantic of any Englishman of the last generation. He was an encyclopedic 
scholar, and much more than a scholar. He knew and had seen more of 
dark Africa than most men, and more of Mohammedan lands than any man. 
It seemed a simple thing for him to travel in disguise among fanatics where 
discovery meant death, but his life was many-sided, and his biography illus- 
trates a remarkable variety of interests. Lady Burton has proved her literary 
ability before, and in these volumes she has done justice to an exceptional 
opportunity. 

" Richard Burton was so fascinating a man, his virility was so gigantic, his intellec- 
tual powers so remarkable, his activity so ceaseless, his courage so splendid, his adven- 
tures so numerous and so thrilling, that his 'Life' can not fail to partake of all these 
qualities. No man has ever been a specialist in so many subjects — soldier, linguist, 
explorer, swordsman, translator, ethnologist, politician; if he had been only one of 
these his career would have been interesting reading, and the present work deals, of 
course, with them all. Everybody will read it." — London Chronicle. 

" Few men of our time have led a more romantic and adventurous life than the late Sir 
Richard F. Burton. A consummate linguist and intrepid traveler, without a rival in his 
varied knowledge of men, races, and religions, the hero of innumerable adventures, 
and of more than one almost impossible undertaking, Burton stands forth in these hum- 
drum days as a rare and almost unique personality. No one is so well qualified to do 
justice to his strange and eventful career as his devoted wife, the sharer and inter- 
preter of his inmost thoughts, his associate in not a few of his singular experiences. . . . 
The book presents a striking and faithful portrait of a very remarkable man and a stir- 
ring record of a very romantic career." — London Times. 

" The volumes abound in interest of every sort, and they constitute an almost per- 
fect course of modern geography and travel for those children of a larger growth who 
will insist on having their knowledge of this kind in an entertaining form." — London 
Daily News. 

" This remarkable book stands out in bold relief against the monotonous back- 
ground of conventional biography. Not even the wild, adventurous theme can account 
for its individual air. It is a free lance, so to speak, departing from accepted models, 
and all the more entertaining in consequence. . . . The descriptions of tent life are 
deeply interesting; the desert pictures will be hard to match. The man himself was as 
interesting as anything he did, and therefore the reader feels grateful for the informal 
personality revealed in this memoir. . . . Maps, portraits, and other illustrations ac- 
company this unique memorial, the true story of a life as marvelous as any of the 
adventures depicted in ' The Thousand and One Nights,' which he restored to their 
original character of Arabian romance." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

"The greatly extended memoir is a deeply interesting work, written in a style 
which forbids criticism, but delightfully entertaining, and containing very little which 
one would wish to have thrown out. Reading these two great volumes is living over 
again the campaigns in which Sir Richard engaged and entering into the adventures 
which characterized his life." — Boston Herald. 

" Lady Burton has animation of style, and she has good command of words. Not 
a line that she writes is dull reading. . . . A stirring, varied, and picturesque story." — 
New York Times. 



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AMP-FIRES OF A NATURALIST. From the 



Field Notes of Lewis Lindsay Dyche, A. M., M. S., Professor 
of Zoology and Curator of Birds and Mammals in the Kansas 
State University. The Story of Fourteen Expeditions after 
North American Mammals. By Clarence E. Edwords. 
"With numerous Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" It is not always that a professor of zoology is so enthusiastic a sportsman as Prof. 
Dyche. His hunting exploits are as varied as those of Gordon Cumming, for example, 
in South Africa. His grizzly bear is as dangerous as the lion, and his mountain sheep 
and goats more difficult to stalk and shoot than any creatures of the torrid zone. Evi- 
dently he came by his tastes as a hunter from lifelong experience." — New York 
Tribune. 

" The book has no dull pages, and is often excitingly interesting, and fully in- 
structive as to the habits, haunts, and nature of wild beasts." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"There is abundance of interesting incident in addition to the scientific element, 
and the illustrations are numerous and highly graphic as to the big game met by the 
hunters, and the hardships cheerfully undertaken. " — Brooklyn Eagle. 

" The narrative is simple and manly and full of the freedom of forests. . . . This 
record of his work ought to awaken the interest of the generation growing up, if only 
by the contrast of his active experience of the resources of Nature and of savage life 
with the background of culture and the environment of educational advantages that 
are being rapidly formed for the students of the United States. Prof. Dyche seems, 
from this account of him, to have thought no personal hardship or exertion wasted in 
his attempt to collect facts, that the naturalist of the future may be provided with com- 
plete and verified ideas as to species which will soon be extinct. This is good work — 
work that we need and that posterity will recognize with gratitude. The illustrations 
of the book are interesting, and the type is clear." — New York Times. 

" The adventures are simply told, but some of them are thrilling of necessity, how- 
ever modestly the narrator does his work. Prof. Dyche has had about as many expe- 
riences in the way of hunting for science as fall to the lot of the most fortunate, and 
this recountal of them is most interesting. The camps from which he worked ranged 
from the Lake of the Woods to Arizona, and northwest to British Columbia, and in 
every region he was successful in securing rare specimens for his museum." — Chicago 
Times. 

" The literary construction is refreshing. The reader is carried into the midst of 
the very scenes of which the author tells, not by elaborateness of description but by the 
directness and vividness of every sentence, He is given no opportunity to abandon 
the companions with which the book has provided him, for incident is made to follow 
incident with no intervening literary padding. In fact, the book is all action." — Kansas 
City Journal. 

" As an outdoor book of camping and hunting this book possesses a timely 
interest, but it also has the merit of scientific exactness in the descriptions of the 
habits, peculiarities, and haunts of wild animals." — Philadelphia Press. 

"But what is most important of all in a narrative of this kind — for it seems to us 
that 'Camp-Fires of a Naturalist' was written first of all for entertainment — these 
notes neither have been ' dressed up ' and their accuracy thereby impaired, nor yet re- 
tailed in a dry and statistical manner. The book, in a word, is a plain narrative of 
adventures among the larger American animals." — Philadelphia Btdletin. 

" We recommend it most heartily to old and young alike, and suggest it as a beauti- 
ful souvenir volume for those who have seen the wonderful display of mounted animals 
at the World's Fair."— Topeka Capital. 




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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



NEW JUVENILE BOOKS. 

ON THE OLD FRONTIER. By William O. 
Stoddard, author of ''Crowded Out o' Crofield," "Little 
Smoke," " The Battle of New York," etc. With 10 full-page 
Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
"A capital story of life in the middle of the last century. . . . The characters in- 
troduced really live and talk, and the story recommends itself not only to boys and 
girls, but to their parents." — N. Y. Times. 

" An exciting narrative. Mr. Stoddard's stories of adventure are always of the 
thrilling sort which boys like most to read. This tale, which relates to the last raids 
of the Iroquois, is as stirring as the best of those which have come from his pen." — 
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 

rHE BO YS OF GREEN WA Y CO UR T. A Story 
of the Early Years of Washington. By Hezekiah Butter- 
worth, author of " In the Boyhood of Lincoln," " The Log 
School -house on the Columbia," " The Zigzag Books," etc. 
With 10 full-page Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" Mr.'Butterworth has written an excellent book, and one that young people will find 
delightful reading." — Boston Beacon. 

" Skillfully combining fact and fiction, he has given us a story historically instruc- 
tive and at the same time entertaining." — Boston Transcript. 

70HN BOYD'S ADVENTURES. By Thomas 
W. Knox, author of " The Boy Travelers," etc. With 12 full- 
page Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
" Few modern authors write a more interesting story of travel and adventure for 
boys than does Colonel Knox. He always seems to know just what the boys want to 
know, and regulates his chapters accordingly. . . . The whole story will hold the close 
attention of the reader." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"The hero is alternately merchant, sailor, man-o'-war's-man, privateer's man, 
pirate, and Algerine slave. The bombardment of Tripoli is a brilliant chapter of a 
narrative of heroic deeds." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

JZ)AUL JONES. By Molly Elliot Sea well, au- 

S> thor of "Little Jarvis," "Midshipman Paulding," etc. With 
8 full-page Illustrations. "Young Heroes of Our Navy" 
Series. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

" A concise, clear sketch of the ranking officer of the Continental marine, who in 
his day played a large part, and did it so well as to command the applause of every 
patriotic American. To forget the name of Paul Jones would be an act of national 
ingratitude. " — Chicago Inter- Ocean. 

" The writer is at home on the decks of the old-fashioned craft. The atmosphere is 
thoroughly salty. Numerous illustrations depict the scenes of Paul Jones's hazardous 
adventures. So good a sea story has not been written for a long time." — Philadel- 
phia Ledger. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 




" This work marks an epoch in the history-writing 
of this country." — St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 



HE HOUSEHOLD HIS- 
TORY OF THE UNITED 
STA TES AND ITS PEOPLE. 
For Young Americans. By Ed- 
ward Eggleston. Richly illus- 
trated with 350 Drawings, 75 Maps, 
colonial court-house. etc. Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. 

PHILADELPHIA, 1707. 

FROM THE PREFACE. 
The present work is meant, in the first instance, for the young— not alone 
for boys and girls, but for young men and women who have yet to make 
themselves familiar with the more important features of their country's 
history. By a book for the young is meant one in which the author studies to 
make his statements clear and explicit, in which curious and picturesque de- 
tails are inserted, and in which the writer does not neglect such anecdotes as 
Jend the charm of a human and personal interest to the broader facts of the 
nation's story. That history is often tiresome to the young is not so much 
the fault of history as of a false method of writing by which one contrives 
to relate events without sympathy or imagination, without narrative connec- 
tion or animation. The attempt to master vague and general records of 
kiln-dried facts is certain to beget in the ordinary reader a repulsion from 
the study of history— one of the very most important of all studies for its 
widening influence on general culture. 

"Fills a decided gap which has existed for 
the past twenty years in American historical 
literature. The work is admirably planned 
and executed, and will at once take its place as 
a standard record of the life, growth, and de- 
velopment of the nation. It is profusely and 
beautifully illustrated." — Boston Transcript, 

*' The book in its new dress makes a much 
finer appearance than 
before, and will be wel- 
comed by older readers 

as gladly as its predeces- Indian's trap. 

sor was greeted by girls 

and boys. The lavish use the publishers have made of colored 
plates, woodcuts, and photographic reproductions, gives an un- 
wonted piquancy to the printed page, catching the eye as surely 
as the text engages the mind." — New York Critic. 

, "The author writes history as a story. It can 'never be 
less than that. The book will enlist the interest of young 
people, enlighten their understanding, and by the glow of its 
statements fix the great events of the country firmly in the 
general putnam. San Francisco Bulletin. 





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TTISTOR Y OF THE PEOPLE 
I~l OF THE UNITED ST A TES, from 
the Revolution to the Civil War. By 
John Bach McMaster. To be com- 
pleted in five volumes. Vols. I, II, 
and III now ready. 8vo, cloth, gilt 
top, $2.50 each. 

In the course of this narrative much is written 
of wars, conspiracies, and rebellions ; of Presi- 
dents, of Congresses, of embassies, of treaties, 
of the ambition of political leaders, and of the 
rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the his- 
tory of the people is the chief theme. At every 
stage of the splendid progress which separates the 
America of Washington and Adams from the 
America in which we live, it has been the au- 
thor's purpose to describe the dress, the occupa- 
tions, the amusements, the literary canons of the times ; to note the changes 
of manners and morals ; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which 
abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and 
of jails ; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, 
have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of 
our race ; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical 
inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our 
just pride and boast ; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and 
peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unpar- 
alleled in the annals of human affairs. 

" The pledge given by Mr. McMaster, that ' the history of the people shall be the 
chief theme,' is punctiliously and satisfactorily fulfilled. He carries out his promise in 
a complete, vivid, and delightful way. We should add that the literary execution of 
the work is worthy of the indefatigable industry and unceasing vigilance with which 
the stores of historical material have been accumulated, weighed, and sifted. The 
cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and energy, are everywhere present. 
Seldom indeed has a book in which matter of substantial value has been so happily 
united to attractiveness of form been offered by an American author to his fellow- 
citizens." — New York Sun. 

" To recount the marvelous progress of the American people, to describe their life, 
their literature, their occupations, their amusements, is Mr. McMaster's object. His 
theme is an important one, and we congratulate him on his success. It has rarely been 
our province to notice a book with so many excellences and so few defects." — New York 
Herald. 

" Mr. McMaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special 
capacity as a historian of the people. His aim is high, but he hits the mark." — 
New York Journal of Commerce. 

". . . The author's pages abound, too, with illustrations of the best kind of histori- 
cal work, that of unearthing hidden sources of information and employing them, not 
after the modern style of historical writing, in a mere report, but with the true artistic 
method, in a well-digested narrative. ... If Mr. McMaster finishes his work in the 
spirit and with the thoroughness and skill with which it has begun, it will take its place 
among the classics of American literature." — Christian Union. % 




JOHN BACH MC MASTER. 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



'THE HISTORICAL REFERENCE-BOOK, com- 

■» prising a Chronological Table of Universal History, a Chrono- 
logical Dictionary of Universal History \ a Biographical Dic- 
tionary. With Geographical Notes. For the use of Students, 
Teachers, and Readers. By Louis Heilprin. Fourth edition, 
revised and brought down to 1893. Crown 8vo. 569 pages. 
Half leather, $3.00. 

" One of the most complete, compact, and valuable works of reference yet pro- 
duced." — Troy Daily Times. 

" Unequaled in its field." — Boston Courier. 
" A small library in itself." — Chicago Dial. 

" An invaluable book of reference, useful alike to the student and the general reader. 
The arrangement could scarcely be better or more convenient." — New York Herald. 

"The conspectus of the world's history is as full as the wisest terseness could put 
within the space." — Philadelphia American. 

" We miss hardly anything that we should consider desirable, and we have not been 
able to detect a single mistake or misprint." — New York Nation. 

" So far as we have tested the accuracy of the present work we have found it with- 
out flaw." — Christian Union. 

" The conspicuous merits of the work are condensation and accuracy. These points 
alone should suffice to give the ' Historical Reference-Book ' a place in every public 
and private library." — Boston Beacon. 

"The method of the tabulation is admirable for ready reference." — New York 
Home Journal. 

"This cyclopaedia of condensed knowledge is a work that will speedily become a 
necessity to the general reader as well as to the student." — Detroit Free Press. 

" For clearness, correctness, and the readiness with which the reader can find the 
information of which he is in search, the volume is far in advance of any work of its 
kind with which we are acquainted." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" The geographical notes which accompany the historical incidents are a novel 
addition, and exceedingly helpful. The size also commends it, making it convenient 
for constant reference, while the three divisions and careful elimination of minor and 
uninteresting incidents make it much easier to find dates and events about which ac- 
curacy is necessary. Sir William Hamilton avers that too retentive a memory tends 
to hinder the development of the judgment by presenting too much for decision. A 
work like this is thus better than memory. It is a 'mental larder' which needs no care, 
and whose contents are ever available." — New York University Quarterly. 

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF UNIVERSAL 
HISTORY. Extending from the Earliest Times to the Year 
1892. For the use of Students, Teachers, and Readers. By 
Louis Heilprin. i2mo. 200 pages. Cloth, $1.25. 
This is one of the three sections comprised in Heilprin 's "Historical 
Reference-Book, " bound separately for convenience of those who may not 
require the entire volume. Specimen pages sent on request. 



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